Why? That is the Question: The Motivation Behind Project 214

 "So why Sofia? What is the why behind Project 214?" This question was granted to me over cafe con leche and conversation with some friends the other night. Loops and loops of explanation in response to that question have spread across: google docs, digital brochures, a youtube trailer, blog entries, subchapters in a manuscript, google + communities, hand scribed and charted in my daily devotional journal, and even iPhone notes typed down on a frantic whim when the muse of social justice and service succumb me...often unannounced. Before I was an activist and teacher, I was a writer. This has been scribbled everywhere that my fingers can type, pens can scribe, and my dreamscape can imagine.However, I suppose I can consolidate the why in one entry anywhere. I have chosen here. So here goes, here goes everything. In 2009, I began my first year of teaching in what what be the most electrifying baptism by fire for rookie teachers. I took a job in Pilsen/Little Village in Chicago at a second chance charter by the name of Latino Youth High School. This was a charter under the only network in the city of Chicago that services students who have either been kicked out or dropped out of the Chicago public school system. Students can apply up to 21 years of age. And to my riveting surprise, the typical demographic/social-economic status of the student body ranged from criminals, prominent gang members, young parents on public aid, homeless, poor, traumatized, and way below reading and writing levels.The room number you may ask? Glad you did. It was Room 214. Sound familiar? It should...this was the birthing place of Project 214, I just had no inclination yet. My first year I was met with a compilation of suffering, triumph, explosive attitudes, and the grim reaper of violence. My first monster to try to tackle: Gang violence. My first year teaching I buried my first student. His name was Adolfo. He was shot in the head at a block party by a rival gang member, was pronounced dead on arrival. His funeral was comparable to getting into a bad car accident, but you survive. The impact, the pain, the bewilderment, the shock you get from being slammed against a dash board I can imagine is comparable to how I felt that day. We walked up to a catholic church on the first day of school to pay homage, not to a scholar receiving a prestigious award, but a fallen soldier from the war on gangs that never will cease with its vicious cycle of retaliation and vengeance.I remember scanning the room, and seeing our students weeping and sobbing like moans that slowly creep up in the esophagus and spill out like pouring water. It was a chorus of grief that has never left my ears. My students next to me had Adolfo's name spray painted on their white T-shirts in solidarity. RIP Adolfo spread across their broken hearts and tattered souls. They shouldn't be used to this, I thought. Yet, they were. At the turn of every summer, many would tell me they'd expect for many to die in the hands of this dark and disgusting current of violence that has struck their neighborhoods. "I want to go up Mrs. G. Please go with us," said one of my students that leaned into my shoulder as she wiped her steady flow of salty tears. "Ok, let's go," I whispered not showing how terrified I felt in that moment. Before I could touch reality, I was walking, no huddling with 3 students, one on the left and two on the right of me. Somehow my arms were able to grab all of them from around their shoulders. We crept up to his casket. He seemed so stiff, hallow, and startlingly different in appearance. The girls let out an enormous sob; I felt their bodies trembling against my sides. With all the strength I had, I tried to hold them up. My eyes screened upwards where I saw a cathedral depiction of Christ. You know the one where he's pointing his finger up and there's like a halo around his head and he looks serene and angel-like? And without notice, a voice spoke to my spirit man uttering, "You know you have to do something about this? You are to help as many kids in trouble as you can, and you will use your classroom to do it. I'll do the rest." I discerned that to be the Holy Spirit talking to my inner conscious. I bowed my head like a soldier would to his commander. I knew I was called to be more than a teacher in that moment, and I was going to sign up for it all...whatever it was going to cost me. And boy did it cost me...everything I had and didn't even know I had.Weeks later, I invited his mom and family to my former faith community where I was giving a message on violence, education, and social justice. She came that day. Her family sat in one long row, dressed in black, covered in the blanket of mourning. I said something that day that has locked me on this path that has led me to Project 214. I said, and I quote, "I promise you, in the name of your dead son, I will use my classroom and my influence to help as many students in trouble as I can. I will use my classroom to promote peace, power, and reconciliation." After saying that, my insides vomited in front of everyone. I started crying uncontrollably, the memories of him walking the hallways in his baggy white shirt and sagging jeans, his smile, his jokes, the funeral...it all overtook me.I spent two more years in that alternative charter, and lost students and their loved ones to murder, jail time with charges of first and second degree murder, getting expelled due to drug possession and bringing rival gang trouble to school, etc. I can keep going, but the details would take pages and pages of intricacy and description. I would not do the memories justice by just a brief mention. That will all take place in my memoir I plan to write on my journey, on this war path I enlisted myself in.Then, I left to a charter in Englewood on the southside of the Chicago. This was an area many deemed the murder capital and climbing. I also lost a student to gun violence, this time a young lady at the wrong place and the wrong time. Every school year, I was confronted with an array of issues the Chicago police, politicians that can impact policy and reform, and the Emergency Room should only deal with. Yet, they landed at my door, my classroom door every school year. I couldn't escape. I couldn't escape being the teacher of kids who were in a lot of trouble. By trouble, I don't mean they need a little tutoring. By trouble, I mean life or death circumstances...every school without fail.Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, around the same time I started my career in teaching introduced me to the mission field of El Salvador. She would always ask around for clothes and shoes to give away everytime she would go on her annual trips to her home country of El Salvador. One day, I had this premonition to go with her, and I did. My world was wrecked after that, but in a good way. I met and fell in love with the people of El Salvador. Their warmth, their hospitality, and the simplicity in which they lived moved me deeply. I came back to Chicago on a mission, a mission to create a lasting partnership with these beautiful people who had stolen my heart, and caught my attention.Before long, I was returning with teams to conduct service projects, and acts of kindness. The town in which I go to by the name of Sacacoyo is a rather indigenous town in the hillsides where poverty is rampant. There was great need there, and everywhere. Yet, you would never know by how simply they lived, and how content they were with very little, and how they stretched what they had. It overwhelmed me and changed me to this day.As a teacher, it started flowing so naturally to promote education at some capacity. It started with bringing a few suitcases of school supplies. Then before I could even register what was happening, it evolved into full back to school parties and backpack give aways. It all started to unfold effortlessly and organically. I was emerging into my calling, and it still didn't dawn on me in its entirety. Another piece, an important piece was missing that we were about to uncover.I kept going every other year since 2009. On the next go around in 2011, I had a former team member beg me to visit a woman in the heart of the capital by the name of Tia Ana. She ran a children's home in the slums with no financial support except for non-profits and other faith-based organizations that literally "find" her. I almost didn't agree to it. We had a small amount of time to get a large team to the airport on time without missing the flight, and I knew as the leader, I'd be held responsible. With reluctance, I agreed. When we got there, we were ambushed by almost 20 smiling faces. We were all alarmed at the joyous welcome. As soon as I met Tia Ana, and felt her arms wrap around me with love and gratefulness, I knew we were connecting for a divine reason. Tia Ana? Her story is amazing. She was a former prostitute turned orphanage runner that takes kids off the streets whose parents are often drug addicts and into prostitution themselves. Many ladies of the night would drop of their infant children to her, knowing she could take care of them better. And she has. She has caught the eye of major disaster relief organizations like Samaritan's Purse. Yet, most importantly to me, she caught my attention. I had a choice to forget her and the gorgeous orphans that showed me more love and appreciation in 15 minutes than people who have been in my life for decades, or remain involved in the provision of her needs at whatever level I can. I was exposed to her and her need, and I decided that I was involved. I have stayed involved ever since. She became part of my mission in El Salvador, like an extension. I started giving donations, throwing back to school parties, and even Facetiming between visits. Tia Ana prays and fasts for me every week. She is my friend and my hero. It is an honor to support her mission, unknowingly, it became apart of mine.In 2013, I experienced great tragedy and loss. My former community disintegrated and my mission-work ceased as a result of a personal crisis in my life. All things global stopped like a freight train slamming into a brick wall. Pieces of my heart and destiny shattered everywhere, and I had no idea how I was going to put the pieces back together. My focus was to survive the toughest storm of my life.I landed a teaching job in my own community in 2014, among my own hispanic culture. In addition, I had given birth to our daughter Genesis, who was such a symbol of rebirth for us. All the while, I still had project 214 in my belly. I tried to let it go, but I couldn't. I was itching to do a service project the following summer. I landed in Costa Rica doing a solo education mission on the heels of my former colleague and friend who hosted me and set me up with a cultural center full of students. I passed out 25 lbs. of school supplies, and conducted a poetry workshop in Spanish. This is when I knew, ok, I have to continue to do this. It was my sweet spot, a defining purpose of mine, and on top of it all, I had promised a grieving mom I'd do something great in the name of her dead son, and I knew this was a way to keep my promise.I came home and rallied some close friends and family to ressurect what would become Project 214. It dawned on me. I should solidify this, make it official, make it a moving element that will combat poverty, break the chains of generational curses, empowering a generation to learn, grow, and sustain themselves. People immediately bought into my passion, and before I knew it, a trip to return to El Salvador in the name of 214 surfaced. Incredible. Unstoppable. The doors are flying open and I'm trying to keep pace. It will be a non-profit, it will be a sustainable force, it will be a force to reckon with in the realm of local and global education.One more thing surfaced out of all this. I realized something else that was crucial to this puzzle that I was trying to piece. I have been endowed with a gift to help kids in trouble. Every year, every class, every school has afforded me the opportunity to help kids in major crisis. Only God can give you this so I take no credit. I am only acknowledging the fact that I can help the most resistant kid, the one no one wants to deal with, that one, the broken one, the aggravated one, the aggressive one...that one...I can reach that one. I have also been afforded access to extreme impoverished conditions in Central America with a broken school system, and scarce resources. I found Tia Ana with her kids who survive off the charity of others; I found Sacacoyo way up in the hills that every time I go back, many are wearing the same shoes we donated the year before. I know how to help them, I know how to provide in ways no one else can. I know how to come in a humble posture, not creating this vibe that I am there to save, but rather, in humility, I go as a student ready to learn from them. What they have given me cannot  be measured in words in the English language.So this is the why. Why project 214? Because I have been enlisted by the Creator Himself. I have been given the burden, and have been exposed to the dire consequences of not receiving an adequate education. I have seen the ramifications of families and students being swept away by the current of violence, poverty, and hopelessness...never to return. Yet, I've also seen the success and the survival of these same families and students if someone, anyone would throw them a rope to pull them into safety. For some reason, I know exactly HOW to do that. And I'm going to invest, build, and dedicate my life to it back home in my classroom, locally in surrounding neighborhoods, and globally as well. Why? Because ALL students matter. The world is a global classroom and we are all interconnected somehow. Why? Because I can, and because I will. All students matter, and I'll be sure, along with an unstoppable team of like-minded warriors for justice, to reach as many as I can in the name of education and the One who will send us. I promised a grieving mom I would, and I intend to keep that promise.