The Grassroots Fellowship is a part-time program that inspires and trains young adults from the communities of Kearns and South Salt Lake to take a leadership role in building up their communities. They do this by facilitating conversations with residents about education and childhood development and by teaching families about the ins-and-outs of the school system. During her fellowship with the Grassroots Leadership team, Angela Chozo organized a college workshop for parents in Spanish. Learn about her experience with the fellowship.
Name: Angela Chozo
Fellowship dates: April 2019-July 2019
What languages do you speak? Spanish and English
Q: What made you originally interested in the Grassroots Program?
A: I loved that the fellowship was community-based and that I was going to do a lot of community outreach.
Q: What projects did you work on during your fellowship?
A: I worked on a few major projects. The first being a series of five early learning workshops for Spanish-speaking parents in Kearns. These workshops were designed to inform parents about how to help and support their children while in preschool and how to prepare them up to first grade.
The other was a college readiness workshop for Spanish-speaking parents. It is one of my passions to share information with people about college because letting parents know about college is such a big deal.
Q: Can you share a story of a single moment that stuck with you?
A: After the College workshop, one of the parents came up to me and thank me for putting the event together. She said that her kid wants to go back to school and that the information we shared helped so much with understanding how to apply for scholarships and what options he had available.
That was so emotional because that right there was the reason why I wanted to do the workshop.
Q: What was your biggest takeaway from the program?
A: By far the college workshop! It was a project that I wanted to do from the very beginning, and I was able to do it right before I left. We, as the Grassroots team, were able to help the parents that want to be involved in their kids’ education.
The Grassroots Fellowship is something I hope United Way of Salt Lake continues doing because there is a need in the community and there are so many people willing to help out and contribute to this amazing cause.
Learn more about the Grassroots Leadership Program at uw.org/grassroots-leadership.
By Angela Chozo, Grassroots Leadership Fellow
