program coordinator: leslie
Behind her sweet smile is plenty of wisdom Leslie hopes to pass on to others at ENRICH
"I found new friends here that I never thought I would get here: students that go to my school and students that are real adults."
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Leslie has been part of ENRICH since her freshman year. She has been Program Coordinator for ENRICH for 2 years, in addition to working with her own community partner.
When asked how she started with ENRICH, Leslie says, "From My roommate who has been doing it for 4 years! My parents both came to America and their experiences led me to want to volunteer."
Leslie says after working with ENRICH, "My parents were so proud of me finding that 'thing' you enjoy doing in college. And I saw my partners in my parents and how my parents learning English.
Confidence is such a big thing, because learning a language is something that doesn’t accomadate to your needs."
On reflecting on her favorite experiences, Leslie talks about the time she spent a whole year a visting scholar from China. She says, "I adored her and she was so funny and she brought her son Sam every day. She had perfect English but thought she couldn’t speak it well. Told me all these stories and gave me so much wisdom about her country and her travels." Leslie says that through this experience with ENRICH, she now has a desire to visit Asia and even learn the language.
When asked what drove her to apply to the board, Leslie says, "They [the board] have so much wisdom." When Leslie was interviewed for the position, she says "I went into the interview and we mostly just talked about the experience of people coming here and how humbling it is for us. It ended up into this great conversation about how great it is to get this perspective. It is so easy to get caught up in your own world....I have all these problems, but to come in every day and think this is so much greater than all of us....is amazing." Leslie says her experience on ENRICH's board has been "like finding a family." The board is constantly trying to improve the way ENRICH is being run to make it better for all. She says she has learned so much about the people she has been working with and how much they want to change ENRICH for the better.
Lastly, when we asked Leslie how to convince someone to join ENRICH, she will tell you this, "The motto of Enrich is learning from each other, you can get such a new perspective being around people form entirely different countries. You don’t need to know the language to build the bridge to connect with someone from another country."