Jennifer Berrios Class of ‘22

STUDENT LEADER, CENTRO DE CULTURA,
ARTE TRABAJO Y EDUCACIÓN (CCATE),
Ursinus College

Jennifer “Jenni” Berrios, a rising senior at Ursinus College, developed the passions she would pursue as a Bonner long before she arrived at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. As a child, Jenni faced hardships in the classroom. With Spanish being her first language, she recounts stories of feeling misunderstood, rather than supported, by teachers. As a college student, Jenni was inspired to do something for other Latino students in her shoes and to foster connections within the broader Latinx community. Through her work at Ursinus College and with her primary community partner, CCATE (Center for Culture, Art, Training, and Education), Jenni has been able to pursue her mission of creating a safe place for residents in the Latinx community to thrive, establishing a lasting impact for years to come.

Jenni’s community partner, CCATE, is a nonprofit organization situated in Norristown, PA that focuses on the holistic development of the families it serves. According to their website CCATE, “ignites social transformation developing the talents and empowering the Latinx community through education, culture, art, technology, health, and science.”

As a freshman, Jenni initiated contact between Ursinus College and CCATE, seeking to establish an ongoing relationship and a place where she could make a difference. With the help of fellow Bonner Leaders, in 2020, Jenni applied for the Racial Justice Community Fund to extend her work, combatting food insecurity issues she observed were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jenni had seen a substantial number of immigrant workers losing their jobs and finding employment harder to secure. Some parents had even made the difficult decision to leave their jobs to care for their children as school and nonprofit shutdowns became pervasive. In this context, meals and resources that may have previously been provided were harder to find.

After a successful proposal, Jenni and the broader team of Ursinus College students began working on the project in January of 2021, with support from the Bonner Foundation’s Racial Justice Community Fund. Their hope was both to provide direct assistance to immigrant families and to conduct community-engaged research to better understand their needs and provide longer-term solutions. The team worked to engage residents in conversations and created food baskets with the resources and recipes to accompany them.

“No junk food!” Jenni said as she explained her goal was to be helpful in nourishing the families. She saw this opportunity as one for community discussions and workshops as well. In addition to the baskets created by Bonners, CCATE provides education and classes on how to garden and provides a space for a public community garden where families can pick vegetables, etc. to promote sustainable healthy eating. In the future, Jenni hopes to include favorite recipes from residents in the Latinx community within the baskets. Eventually, the team aims to create a cookbook filled with culturally rich ideas directly from community members – and perhaps to sell it to fund the project.

Jenni said these Latinx parents often confided with her that what they wanted was the best for their children, which means being able to cook and provide for them especially during this difficult season of their lives. She felt affirmed by these conversations, identifying the project as her favorite contribution through engaging this year. “Giving baskets was beautiful, and hearing about the impact of these baskets had was amazing,” she said.

Jenni also conducted interviews with the families to better understand their needs. Providing assistance for families to cover groceries meant that households could use their money to keep up with their bills and other expenses, all of which became more necessary during the pandemic.

Jenni admitted that interviewing Spanish speakers could be difficult for peers who were primarily English speakers due to the language barrier. To respond to this issue, her teammates helped by creating flyers, surveys, as well as a bilingual video to explain the project. Check out that video here.

Creating that video was also one of Jenni’s most favorite ways she contributed to the project. “We all collaborated on that to communicate with the CCATE community. It got to people, we got more responses from the survey, it means they saw the video and it worked,” she said.

Another defining aspect of Jenni’s involvement at CCATE was to establish a connection with the Latinx population in the community. While attending a PWI (primarily white institution), Jenni had found she often craved the food, advice, and relational connection she missed from home. So, working with CCATE and the extended Latinx community became her home away from home.

Jenni reflected that she had learned incredibly valuable lessons from the project, including the impact of rich and diverse forms of communication on strengthening and deepening understanding and community. Recognizing the space to continue to learn and grow as a leader, Jenni is excited to push through with plans for next year. She hope to move the project in the direction of education on healthy living, linking the project with her Bonner Capstone. “I cannot wait to see what else our team can accomplish,” she added.

For more information on Jenni and the project at CCATE, check out the coverage that the project received from local news here.