Hello, my name is Carlos, and I am a first-generation Latino college graduate. This year, I will be entering my first year as a high school English teacher, and I need your help in supporting young learners that come from underprivileged backgrounds.

I want to share more than just a checklist of what I need and how you can help. I want to share my story on becoming a teacher, why I am deserving of your donation, and why I have chosen to come back to teach at the high school I graduated from. I want to share that at this point in time, right here and now, I have a desire to continue to get better at serving my community through education.

I come from a Title I high school, which means I come from a community labeled “low-income” and “at risk for academic failure.” I knew that was true because my friends and I often juggled responsibilities far beyond our age. We became second parents to our younger siblings while our moms and dads worked long shifts, and we missed school sometimes simply because we didn’t have reliable transportation. Over time, these challenges made us lose sight of our own potential. Our grades slipped, our motivation faded, and we were often told, directly or indirectly, that college might not be for us.

Despite it all, I went to college. I am proud to say that I am an alum of both El Camino Community College and California State University of Long Beach. In earning both my Associate’s and Bachelor’s in English Education, I am also happy to share that I have successfully completed my teacher residency program, earning my teaching credential in Secondary English here in California. All of this was six years in the making: a path filled with setbacks, sleepless nights, hard choices, but also with moments of joy and victories that shaped me. I am stronger now, and I am ready.

Now, I’m returning not just to teach, but to serve, to represent, and to remind my future students that their stories matter just as much as anyone else’s. It was my teachers, those few who saw something in me and believed in me, who planted the idea that I could go to college in the first place. It wasn’t easy. It took six long, difficult years to earn my degree. There were setbacks, doubts, and moments when I didn’t know if I would make it. But here I am, ready to serve the community that nurtured me and pushed me toward higher education.

With this in mind, I carry a deep commitment to the students in front of me. I carry my story, my students’ realities, and a desire to make my classroom a space of growth, belonging, and purpose. This is the part where I will need your help.

Your donation, whether it’s $5 or $50, will help provide new books, classroom supplies and materials, and help create the kind of environment that shows students they are worthy of investment. It will help ease the burden that so many Title I schools quietly carry. For me, that burden stems from an idea I have challenged: that students like my former self aren’t worth investing in, that we are likely to drop out or make nothing of ourselves. I reject that idea. I have challenged my fate and now I want to support students who are standing where I once stood.

If you’ve read this far, thank you, not just for your time, but for believing in stories like mine and in the futures of the students I’ll be serving. Thank you for supporting first-year teachers and for challenging the idea that students labeled “at risk of academic failure” don’t go on to achieve anything. We do big things. We go to college, we follow our dreams, and we come back to give to the communities that shaped us.

With deep gratitude,

Mr. May