Our Town Schuyler: Community Learning Center

By: Lance Schwartz - Email

Updated: Thu 7:23 PM, Feb 21, 2013

The Cargill Community Learning Center is a partnership between Central Community College and Cargill Meat Solutions. For the past 5 years, they've been providing adult education classes to any Cargill employees or any Schuyler citizens at no charge.

The learning center is located at the meat packing plant on the west side of Schuyler.

Kim Parsons is an educator at the center, "Oh my goodness, this is the best job I've ever had. I enjoy coming to work every day."

And the reason Kim has enjoyed teaching English as a second language for the past 5 years is her relationships with her students, "I work with some of the greatest people there. They're so inspiring, they're hard working. They appreciate everything that they have here and the things we can do for them. They're very appreciative."

And much of the reason for that is because these students are thirsting for knowledge and also wanting to become American citizens.

After spending the past ten years in the United States, Rodrigo Martinez felt peer pressure to become bi-lingual, "I think it's better if you speak two language. I have a lot of friends they only speak English so I felt like embarrassment and I couldn't understand what they say so I think we should speak English because we are in America and America speak English so."

The learning center is open for anyone who wants to learn how to speak English. The center is funded by Cargill with support from Central Community College, so there is very minimal charge for attending classes.

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