Dealing with Hardship and Misfortune, Single Mother Gains The Skills For A Rewarding Career

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” is what STVT student Odilia Galan reminds herself when facing adversity. There are many pieces to Odilia’s story, first moving to Brownsville from her hometown Immokalee, FL.

Bringing her two kids and only three changes of clothes for herself. Odilia moved to Texas to help her sister-in-law raise her two children while Odilia’s brother was incarcerated.

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Odilia was just beginning to see good things happen when she enrolled in the Patient Care program at STVT in Brownsville, TX. Suddenly her sister-in-law abandoned her two kids taking the car and leaving Odilia with little income, no transportation and four children to care for ranging from 1 ½ to 4 years old.

As anyone could imagine, Odilia was extremely overwhelmed by these turn of events in her life. “I had no family here, no husband and barely any friends to turn to,” Odilia said. “I would walk from Riverside to Central everyday to get to class for about a month. Sometimes people would pick me up along the way to give me a ride.” Little did Odilia know that this was over a four-mile walk round-trip. She said her father brought her car from Florida for her to have transportation but after only a month, it was stolen and never recovered. Unfortunately Odilia wasn’t able to continue her classes at the Brownsville campus and had to drop out.

Odilia was struggling and could barely afford to keep the water and electricity on. She made a move to San Benito, TX to clean houses and after some months was able to get another car. Odilia was determined to finish school so she re-enrolled at the Weslaco, TX Campus. Before too long Odilia was facing major obstacles again; her car would break down, but she would, again, walk miles to get to school.

When asked, what kept you going through all this adversity Odilia said she remembers instructor, Mr. Dave Gonzalez, telling her “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Odilia could barely hold back her emotions when she said this is what helped her and she recalled a moment when she and her kids were without electricity from almost two weeks. “I would place candles throughout the house and my kids would pretend they were camping,” she said laughingly through her tears.

Once Odilia reached the point to do her clinicals the only options through STVT were sites that were more than an hour away for her. Odilia was persistent with a local detention center’s infirmary where one of the supervisors, Mr. Dean Garza said, “Odilia was very persistent to allow us to hold clinicals for her and one other student. We finally said why not and we gave them a try. Odilia is one of strongest people I’ve ever met, has an excellent work ethic and am happy to say she is currently employed at the infirmary as a Medication Aid after she finished her clinicals.”

Ms. Galan received a special recognition at her graduation from STVT instructors and staff commending her on overcoming so many obstacles that would halt many folks from continuing on.

Defeating Adversity Means Achieving Goals Despite Legal Blindness

When Christopher Justin “CJ” Mercado visited the South Texas Vocational Tech campus in Brownsville, TX, he knew he had a challenging road ahead in his pursuit to become a medical professional interested in infectious disease research. When he was six years old, CJ had a severe case of meningitis that caused him to become legally blind. Since that incident, CJ knew he wanted to become a medical practitioner and help others much like those that helped him during that difficult time.

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After being turned away by other institutions because of his eyesight challenges, CJ inquired with STVT and was enrolled in the school’s Medical Assistant program after meeting the entry requirements of the program.

“CJ’s first day of class was like any other student’s,” said Janie Albertsen, one of CJ’s instructors. “He came in a little timid but immediately, I saw he possessed a drive and passion for learning and mastering any skill required of him. He was treated like everyone else, and he really appreciated that.”

CJ quickly became a model student and would frequently spend additional hours in the labs and after school improving his techniques and understanding of the medical assistant profession. His hard work and dedication paid off when he passed his national certification as a medical assistant and focused his attention on additional training after graduating in April 2010.

CJ will be enrolling this fall at the University of Texas at Brownsville. He plans to study toward becoming an epidemiologist.