Latino Outreach in LA's Catholic Schools Prompts Hard Work, New Ideas, and Hope

The hopefulness and community-building that undergird Catholic schools’ outreach efforts to Latino students were captured in a story in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section on Feb. 28.

Spotlighting ACE’s Catholic School Advantage campaign “at the forefront” of those outreach efforts, the story focused on grass-roots situations in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles—such as the aspirations that have prompted Martha Rodriguez to send her children to Catholic school and the desire to serve low-income students at schools like St. Teresa of Avila.

Helping to give context to these situations was Sylvia Armas-Abad, the ACE campaign’s field consultant in the Los Angeles area. Her own outreach efforts among the Latino community (which represents such a growing, vibrant part of the Catholic population) “include canvassing neighborhoods surrounding parish schools and forming parent volunteer groups called madrinas (Spanish for godmother) at schools around the city,” wrote Religion News Service correspondent Aaron Schrank in the “On Faith” article.