Future Foundations worker helps Grants youth

Delilah Emmanual helps a group of children playing BINGO Wednesday at Future Foundations Family Center in Grants. Emmanual, who is working on her degree in early childhood development, wrote a grant request for the center which State Farm Insurance Company approved as part of their Youth Service Day Good Neighbor program. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Delilah Emanuel successfully wrote a $1,000 grant to provide trees and other landscaping for the new soccer field that is about to be competed at the Future Foundations Family Center.

Emanuel, 20, is a sophomore at New Mexico State University-Grants, and had been a student intern at the center for the past year until Feb. 1.

The Americorps funding for the internship ran out, and Laura Malaj, executive director of the center, said she then hired Emanuel because of her ability to work with children.
Emanuel said she is studying early childhood at the college with an intent to become a Head Start, preschool, first- or second-grade teacher in the Grants-Cibola County School District.

Emanuel’s ability to work well and communicate with children is something three pupils from Mesa View Elementary School agree with.

Tiffany Albright, 12, an eighth-grader, said Emanuel helps her with homework when it is needed.

“She explains it really well to me and has a lot of patience,” Tiffany said. “I hang out with her a lot too. We watch the kids playing basketball when she is in charge,”
Albright said Emanuel also helps her in the Youth Room at the center when she is trying to write and doesn’t know how to spell some words.

Theron Thompson, 8, a second-grader, said Emanuel makes him work but also explains homework to him well.

“Math is hard and she helps,” he said. “I think she can explain homework better than other people.”

Theron said Emanuel will make a good teacher because she is “real nice and real smart.”

Marc Chavez, 10, a fourth-grade pupil, said Emanuel takes her time when explaining homework.

“Sometimes I read to her out of a book and she helps,” he said.

He said he likes the way she tells him about his math problems and other homework.

“She is real wise and real smart,” he said.

Malaj said the grant was applied to the State Farm Youth Service Good Neighbor program and required a pupil to submit the application.

“I really learned a lot. I went online and researched how to write grants and Laura helped me,” Emanuel said.

This is the first grant Emanuel has written and the first time State Farm has selected the center to receive funding for a project.

“I had to do a budget, explain to them what the money would be used for, how much things were and give them a time frame in which the money would be spent,” she said.

Emanuel said she likes working at the center because she is able to work with children every day and that continues to motivate her to achieve her goal of becoming a teacher.

She also knows how to communicate in American Sign Language with the hearing impaired.

“When I was in school in Zuni as a young student, there was a boy in our class who was deaf. We had to learn how to sign to be able to talk with him,” Emanuel said.

She said she continues to take sign classes, some at the college, and thinks that as a teacher the ability to communicate with hearing impaired students would be a major asset.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.