2019 CIIP Program Book CIIP Booklet 2019 | Page 23

Community Partner: Esperanza Center
Peer Mentor: Eillen Martinez
Site Supervisor: Wardi Donnelly
What is the Esperanza Center?
The Esperanza Center is a comprehensive
resource center whose mission is to welcome
immigrants by offering hope, compassionate
services, and the power to improve their lives.
• Translated and filled out ap-
plications with patients, such
as hospital financial assistance
and MTA Mobility applications;
assisted parents of patients in
applying for Children’s Medical
Service, a free state medical pro-
gram for uninsured kids in MD
• Helped run the front desk where
I filled out intake paperwork
with patients, referred people to
other city resources, prepared
patient files, and reviewed pro-
vider’s instructions with patients
after their visit
• Helped coordinate the clinic vol-
unteers for the summer and fall
• Implemented new filing system
for our 200+ patients receiving
specialty care through The Ac-
cess Partnership (TAP) program
22
My second summer with Esperanza Center has stressed the importance of its role in our city.
Esperanza Center has been at the forefront of defending, protecting, and supporting immigrants in a time
when they are dehumanized, threatened, and targeted by many in the United States. They hear about us
through their brother in law, grandmother, sister, co-worker, friend. The people that make up Esperanza have
been woven into the fabric of Baltimore’s immigrant community, particularly evident this past year when the
center suffered a fire.
The building closed and its services were displaced, dispersing to different locations around the city; none-
theless, operations have endured and flourished. Maybe something learned from our clients. Health ser-
vices, where I work, and client services now share a single space in a church basement. Regardless of our
move, people fill up the room every single day. Hanging on the front wall is a hand-made poster reading
what our entrance used to: welcoming immigrants by offering hope, compassionate services, and the power
to improve their lives. At Esperanza, we do what we can to help people transition into a new environment, a
change many of us relate to.
I have had a moving concept of home, Baltimore the most recent chapter in my journey. The home I have
found here is strongly grounded with the people at Esperanza and I know that many of our community
members can say the same. It’s in the way the staff go out of their way to care:
Yaneldis planning to go to the MTA after work to figure out how to buy bus passes for a patient, Wardi
accompanying a patient to an appointment on the opposite side of Baltimore, Katie taking her lunch to call
and follow up with patients, Tania advocating for immigrants in rallies, Maria being open to taking care of
a child in her home while he recovers, Bill making balloons out of gloves for kids, Zack writing articles to
advocate for our immigrants, Theresa sitting with a patient in the waiting area, rubbing her back, telling her
it’s going to be okay.
It’s them being familiar faces in, what is for many, a foreign place. They embody safety and hope. This makes
Esperanza Center an indispensable place in Baltimore’s community. I am honored to have had a vantage
point of the many different aspects of the clinic as an intern and I look forward to spending my last year at
Hopkins continuing to serve alongside the people that help make Baltimore home for many, including me.