Hispanic Heritage Month gave our youth a lot to celebrate this year. They made their own Frida Kahlo portraits, each one crowned with bright pom-pom flowers. They learned about artists, athletes, scientists, and leaders like Roberto Clemente, Ellen Ochoa, Celia Cruz, and Fernando Valenzuela. Crystal, a Friend (professional mentor), even took her girls to a Mexican Independence celebration at our local library, where they watched the folklórico dancers perform in their ribbon skirts.

One highlight was a movie about a hometown hero. A Million Miles Away tells the story of José M. Hernández. He grew up working the Central Valley fields, graduated from Franklin High School, and flew to space on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009. Our youth watched it together at the Clubhouse with an ice cream sundae bar to top it off.

This fall, the Cortopassi Family Foundation gave our chapter a signed José M. Hernández poster and a copy of his bilingual picture book, The Boy Who Touched the Stars / El niño que alcanzó las estrellas. It is not every day a Stockton kid gets to see a signed poster from an astronaut who grew up here.

One of our favorite parts of his story includes a Stockton teacher. When he was in second grade, his family moved with the harvest each year, and Miss Young noticed he kept changing schools. She went to the house and asked his parents to stay in Stockton so the children could stay in one school. They did. Decades later, when Discovery lifted off, Miss Young was standing next to his parents at José's request.

Miss Young did not get him to space. She helped him stay in one place long enough for everything else to happen.

That is a lot of what a Friend (professional mentor) does too. One adult outside the family who knows a child well and keeps showing up, week after week, through high school graduation. 12+ years, no matter what.

Thank you to the Cortopassi Family Foundation for the poster and the book, and for putting his story in our youth’s hands. And thank you, José M. Hernández, for showing a whole city how far a kid from Stockton can go, and for the way you keep showing up for this community. Stockton is lucky to call you one of its own.

Friends of the Children – Stockton is a growing chapter, and we are proud to be building it here, in the city that raised an astronaut. Every child who made a Frida portrait this fall has a Friend (professional mentor) who will still be beside them in middle school, in high school, and on graduation day.

Miss Young saw something in a Stockton second grader and made sure he had the chance to grow into it. When you give, you help make sure every child in our program has someone like that in their corner, right here at home, for the long run.

Thank you for being part of what Stockton is building!