by: Jazmin Bailey Fox 8 News

(NEXSTAR) — Proyecto Raices is a non-profit organization in Akron, Ohio, that aims at enriching the Hispanic community in Northeast Ohio, by providing young Latinos with resources and a sense of community.

“It started down the street at St. Bernard church,” Executive Director Rita Aggarwal said. “They had Spanish mass and so the Hispanic community, about 20 years ago, started to gather in their social hall after mass, particularly women and children.”

These days, the Sabado program is Proyecto Raices’ bread and butter, says Aggarwal. Meeting on the first and third Saturday of each month, children aged 7 to 14 gather for academic enrichment, cultural programming, and more.

“We give them a sense of being able to be together as a group,” Aggarwal said.

Partners are integral to the organization’s success. Take the Akron Latin Festival for example. It’s cosponsored by Downtown Akron Partnership.

Throughout the year, college students come to volunteer with the focus on STEM, reading, and healthy living.

After a 2023 Summit County youth risk behavior study revealed Latino students were at the top of the list for suicide ideation, Aggarwal said they brought in Cleveland’s art therapy studio so the kids could create with their emotions.

“It’s the bullying, it’s the feeling lost and not connected,” Aggarwal said. “You try to blend in at school as best as you can and then you go home and it’s a different language, different food, different cultural norms. The way that you navigate your outside world, you don’t have all the cues.”

Representation is powerful. Aggarwal said Proyecto Raices helps Latino kids see themselves in Northeast Ohio, while also imagining what’s possible for their future.

“20 years ago when I started as a volunteer at Proyecto Raices, we would ask, what do you want to be when you grow up… it wasn’t very broad,” Aggarwal said. “But now some of them say, ‘I want to be a doctor,’ ‘I want to go to Harvard.’ We had one kid say that to us!”

With so many Latino cultures represented in Akron, Proyecto Raices is the common thread broadening horizons for a younger generation that inevitably carries those lessons home.

“Not only do I feel like we help that one person that’s directly impacted by our programming, we help the entire family. When you help the entire family, then you’re helping the entire community because those adults are going to be much more productive,” Aggarwal said.

Watch the full interview here.