By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—At a reception Aug. 7 celebrating 15 years serving Hispanics and others in need in the Athens area, Catholic Social Services-Athens presented José Duarte, the son of immigrant clients, a $2,000 Fekete Scholarship to attend college.

The reception was held at the SunTrust Bank in Athens and was attended by Duarte’s parents, Aurelio and Enriqueta Duarte, his teacher Michael Dockery and about 65 other supporters including volunteers and representatives of various local social service organizations. CSS executive director Pam Buckmaster introduced and presented the check to Duarte.

Stella Sailors, CSS-Athens program director, welcomed those gathered.

“Tonight we are reunited to celebrate the 15th anniversary of continuous services of CSS, Inc. in Athens-Clarke County and surrounding areas and as a central part of this celebration to give the first Fekete Scholarship award.”

Sailors, originally from Colombia and a five-year CSS employee, thanked Paul Fekete, who provided the scholarship, and volunteers, the advisory council, Athens government, businesses, religious and social organizations and other supporters. She also shared historical highlights of CSS-Athens, founded to serve low-income families and to promote full participation of Hispanics in community life.

“Since the beginning the office of CSS-Athens has developed into a central place for Hispanics in northeast Georgia to obtain needed assistance ... The presence of CSS-Athens always has been necessary when there are problems in the Hispanic population. Our knowledge and experience have assisted in finding the right solutions to benefit the Athens and Clarke communities,” she told attendees. “Our office has become a focal point as a liaison between the community at large and the Hispanic population.”

Duarte, 18, is a graduate of Clarke Central High School where he ran track, wrestled, played soccer and excelled in cross country. Born in Chicago, he moved to Atlanta in 1992 where he adapted easily to the quiet community and grew to love it. He and his family are members of St. Joseph’s Church, Athens. Both Mexican immigrants, Aurelio now receives legal assistance from CSS and the nonprofit organization helped Enriqueta become a U.S. citizen.

Duarte began his freshman year in August at Georgia State University. “It’s helped me a lot because it’s really difficult for students to work (for money) and have good grades in school. It kind of gives me a good start to not work so hard and get used to what the school thing is ... I can just put more effort into studying,” he said, after beginning school.

He feels particularly fortunate as many of his Latino peers drop out of high school because of things like lack of parental support or the language barrier. “Not many (Hispanic) people really pursue going to college ... I kind of feel grateful and hopefully other people will realize there are other things that can help them if they look for it.”

Duarte is off to a “great” start and plans to major in international business. Already fluent in English and Spanish and partly fluent in French, he hopes for a job in communications or computers where he’ll be able to travel.

“I like speaking different languages. I took four years of French in high school ... Also I just want to learn many languages like Japanese and Chinese once I get down French pretty good,” he said. “I’m trying to get involved in the Latin American Association at Georgia State. I’m trying to shoot for getting a 4.0 GPA. I want to give it a shot by studying every day.”

The scholarship was made available through a $10,000 donation by Fekete, a former Athens doctor now living in Lawrenceville, who requested some of the money be used for it. Catholic Charities helped Fekete’s father, Miklos, find a job in the United States when he and his mother moved from Europe after World War II. As Miklos was a teacher in Ohio, Fekete named the scholarship in his honor. The money has also been used by the center to upgrade telephone and computer systems.

“We saw the good CSS has done in Athens and felt any gift would have a greater impact with a smaller entity,” Fekete said in an article in the Athens Daily News. “Hopefully this will help show some support for young people and all the challenges they face.”

Sailors, in a phone interview later, said she was particularly glad to lend a hand to Duarte with the scholarship renewable for next semester.

“He came looking for some kind of help because he already was accepted by the university. He wanted to study but had some kind of economic problem,” she said. “He’s the kind of person, he gives you a positive impression from the first moment—very educated, very polite, very serious about his goals of what he wants to do.”

With that love of languages she thinks he’ll literally go far. “Probably in the future he’ll be a manager of a company overseas,” Sailors said. “He’s very smart, a very bright kid.”

CSS-Athens serves the Duarte family and over 4,000 other clients yearly, 90 percent of whom are Hispanic. An estimated 8,000 Latinos live in Athens according to a 1998 UGA study, a 77 percent increase from 1990, and many work in construction, landscaping and restaurant jobs. Sailors, who has lived in Athens for 12 years, said that with the large Hispanic high school drop-out rate Duarte is the first from the town’s poor Hispanic community to attend college. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Education reported that a third of all Hispanic students never finish high school. Contributing to that, Latino students are also less likely than their peers to attend preschool, score high on standardized tests, be assigned to college-prep courses and attend well-financed schools, according to an article on the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans in The Atlanta Journal.

Fighting those currents, Sailors enjoys helping youth catch the wind and set sail. “I feel very proud to see that the dream came true that finally somebody from the Hispanic community is going for higher education, college, and that we at CSS are able to help in this,” she said. “One of my goals and main interests here is teaching the students not only to graduate from high school (but) to go farther than that ... Taking advantage of education they have the privilege to take advantage of in their own community because probably in their country they didn’t have it.”

Sailors clearly has a number of goals. CSS has had an active anniversary year and was the only office in Athens giving public assistance providing information and help in filling out census forms, as 1990 Latino census efforts were hindered by distrust and lack of understanding of it. In January the office raised $10,000 and identified affordable housing to help some of the 150 immigrants evicted from a condemned trailer park to relocate to new homes.

Another initiative has local Hispanics, like doctors and UGA professors, serve as role models by speaking at area high schools. Longstanding services include ESL education, translating and interpreting, employment and other bilingual services and a thrift shop. CSS-Athens is a member of the Task Force for Education of Non-Native Speakers of English and of the Family Connection Partnership.

“We’re celebrating 15 years of serving the community. For me it’s ... a very important issue because CSS has proven through 15 years of service that we are a good asset for Athens and Clarke County,” Sailors said.

CSS has definitely been an asset to Duarte’s family ever since they came to town, assisting with everything from getting him registered for school to regularly helping his dad, who runs an ice cream truck and has limited English, with business matters.

“It’s been a huge help for us,” Duarte said. “They really keep us informed and help us out a lot. They really help out a lot of families and every time I go there, there’s always somebody waiting. A lot of people know who they are in the Hispanic community.”