While, in 2013 Roselyn Castillo founded her own personal organization called Read Hope Achieve, its goal was to provide everyone with the equal opportunity to learn how to read and to fall in love with literature as she has, especially now being that one of her majors is in English. In 2013, she set up boxes in local businesses, put an ad in the local newspaper, and was able to collect over 2,000 books and monetary donations to establish a media center and 7 classroom libraries in Alpha Charter of Excellence, a school opening that year in a low- income neighborhood in Little Havana, Florida. The media center was named and is still currently named, the Roselyn Castillo Library. In 2017, she, along with her friend Katelyn Garciga, returned and heard the first graduating fifth graders, the same kindergarteners who she had built the library for years back, tell of memories they had made in her library and they hosted an assembly for them and their parents, providing information on college and financial aid, encouraging these first generation students to dream big and that it’s never too early to start working towards their goals. They also set up a “college and career corner" in the media center with pamphlets they had made and other sources of information from credible sources, with the theme of Suess’ Oh the Places You Will Go. Now Roselyn and her friends, Katelyn Garciga and Emily Moreno, who also attend the University of Florida, plan to personally deliver books and host readings in impoverished neighborhoods, homeless family shelters, schools, and orphanages in Miami this upcoming spring break. "We can be the change for these children, so that they can be the change in their own communities and families, by being first generation students", they say. This is something Emily Moreno recalls first- hand since she, too, is a first generation student. Look out for our next blog!
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