Twice a week, Aaron Henley goes into a space smaller than a typical classroom to tutor a fifth-grade boy. This space is where the boy’s family lives, and many other migrant families in West Michigan like his live many people deep in small spaces and poor conditions.

“You realize how much most people, including yourself, take their lifestyle for granted,” said Henley, a Grand Valley State University student.

Henley and other students with Spanish majors or Spanish experience are taking part in tutoring migrant children this fall before their families return south for the winter for other work. The migrant farm workers are from various countries, but the majority of them are Spanish-speaking, which makes Spanish students a good fit for the project.

Students can also receive Spanish credits for their tutoring hours.

The tutoring was brought about after Migrant Legal Aid, a local nonprofit, was awarded a $10,000 Gerber Foundation grant this spring. GVSU Spanish professor Natalia Gomez, a Migrant Legal Aid board member, and Teresa Hendricks, the executive director, worked together to write the grant with help from Cindy Silva and Anna Vazquez.

Gomez said she has been thinking about how to help the children of the migrant farm workers for years.

“If they’re moving from school district to school district so frequently, it’s hard for them to get a complete education,” said Patty Kelly, a GVSU student who interned for Migrant Legal Aid during the summer.

Kelly said students might learn the same thing three times and then completely miss something else, or their parents could have trouble helping them with assigned work because of the language barrier. Kelly and her sister Meaghan both take part in helping Migrant Legal Aid.

GVSU student Rylee Tuggle has tutored a few different children at the camps. She helped one fifth-grade girl with science and math.

“On the science days, I tried to bring in experiments,” Tuggle said. “We made lemon soda one day, and did some others involving leaves.”

Gomez said the students have all been going above and beyond. She first sent out an email to Spanish students during the summer, when she was teaching in Spain. There was such a huge response that student Kelsey Schoenborn ended up stepping in to help coordinate it while Gomez was gone.

“We find that there is a huge need, more than we expected,” Gomez said. However, the students have gotten really involved and some are tutoring more than one child, and spending countless hours driving to the camps and tutoring the children each week. “They are doing exemplary work.”

Kelly Crowley is one GVSU student who Gomez said is going beyond the expectations. Crowley noticed that when she would arrive to tutor a fifth-grade girl that her three younger siblings wanted attention, too. To keep her student focused, Crowley started bringing a Spanish-speaking friend with her to play with the younger kids while she works with their older sister.

“She’s really bright, and it’s fun when she brings home geography stuff and I’m able to explain it to her, and she has those ‘Aha!’ moments,” Crowley said.

Gomez said this experience will help educate the students who are tutoring the migrant children, too.

“It will help them in their whole education, the students being aware of the situations outside of the boundaries of the program,” she said.

To learn more about Migrant Legal Aid, visit www.migrantlegalaid.com.

[email protected]