Through 2024, Naples Children & Education Foundation — with funds raised by the Naples Winter Wine Festival — has helped more than 350,000 area children achieve their dreams through its support of child advocacy, early learning, education programs, health care and more.

And for anyone looking to measure the profound effect that the programs funded by NCEF have had on children in need in Collier County, proof can be found in the lives of three young adults. They are all alumni of at least one program funded by NCEF — and all three are now contributing as adults to the programs that helped shape their lives.

In advance of the 25th Naples Winter Wine Festival, The Naples Press spoke with Elizabeth Cuevas, 28, community and volunteer engagement manager at the Guadalupe Center; Leslie Gallegos, 25, now in her fourth year as a teacher at Eden Park Elementary School in Immokalee; and Jeffrey Zacarias, 20, a college student and assistive technology assistant at Lighthouse of Collier.

‘Paving the way’ Elizabeth Cuevas

Community and volunteer engagement manager, Guadalupe Center

Born in Naples to a migrant family and raised in Immokalee, Elizabeth Cuevas remembers “chasing the crops” with her parents and siblings, always traveling with the seasons to pick fruits and vegetables.

Eventually, her mother decided to stay in Immokalee so that the children would have a more consistent school experience while her father continued to follow the agricultural seasons.

“That was very important, because you can imagine that moving everybody in the entire family, it can cause disruption,” Cuevas recalled in a phone interview. “Thankfully, throughout my elementary school years, my mom would stay behind with myself and my siblings so that I could stay in school and receive the education that I needed.”

Throughout middle school, she continued going north in the summers with her family to pick crops. But her hope was to become a tutor at the Guadalupe Center — the place that had provided tutoring to her in elementary school.

When she was a freshman in high school, she joined the Guadalupe Center Tutor Corps, an experience she says helped change the direction of her life.

“I think I could speak not only for myself, but for many of the students, too: You wait for that ‘golden ticket’ opportunity, and that’s what Guadalupe Center did,” she said. “That’s what it does, and what it continues to do.”

Cuevas said the Guadalupe Center gave her “a different way of viewing the world through another kind of lens.”

She credits the resources at her disposal through the Guadalupe Center for her success in high school, which led to a full-ride scholarship to Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. At Arcadia she had the chance to study abroad in Paris, which was a dream come true for her.

“I remember vividly when I was a little girl, I want to say fourth grade, I wrote this little story and it said that I was going to go to Paris one day,” she recounted. “And look: I did. I’m telling you, that’s what the Guadalupe Center does. It makes dreams come true.”

In what she called a “full cycle” experience, Cuevas — who also was one of the founding students of Taste of Immokalee — is now on staff at the Guadalupe Center, working to help other children make use of the resources that guided her along the way. She also serves on the recently established alumni council.

“Seeing other members, too, that are coming back [to serve], it really resonates with me,” she said. “For me, personally, coming back and serving in the role that I am now, it’s taught me that through hard work you can end up doing things that you truly do love.”

She said she is most grateful for that initial opportunity to be a tutor at the same school she attended when she was younger.

“Being able to come back and being a tutor, to me, was immense,” Cuevas said, “because I’m paving the way for another little girl or another little boy.”

‘Coming from nothing … I have everything’ Leslie Gallegos

First-grade teacher, Eden Park Elementary School, Immokalee

Leslie Gallegos, born in Immokalee in a family of migrant workers, developed a passion for learning early in life that led to a dream of becoming an educator herself.

Her parents prioritized education for Leslie and her siblings, and she became the first person in her family to attend and graduate from high school. With support from Immokalee Foundation programs and a scholarship from Take Stock in Children, she went on to graduate from Florida Gulf Coast University with a degree in child and youth studies with a concentration in education. She is now pursuing a master’s degree at FGCU in educational leadership, with a goal of working in school administration at a leadership level.

In a phone interview, Gallegos recalled how her parents wanted to provide a better life for their children, putting an emphasis on education, which they saw as the “ticket to get out of working in the hot sun.”

But while pursuing her education, Gallegos continued to join her family seasonally in the fields even through her first year in college.

She credits the Immokalee Foundation programs with helping her learn how to focus on goals and aspirations and with providing experiences that kept her inspired.

“In my family, no one had ever graduated high school; no one ever went to formal school,” she said. “So, at least for me, if I had not gotten my scholarship and been involved with them, I would not have attended school. I would not have graduated [from] high school, and I wouldn’t be the successful professional that I am today.”

In an Immokalee Foundation program in middle school, Gallegos said she was impressed with the panels of professionals who would come and talk to the students about their life paths, and started thinking about her own goals. She also had the opportunity in eighth grade to attend a summer camp in Maine for three weeks, and in junior year was able to visit colleges across the state.

“That was a big turning point in my life,” she said. “When I was in 11th grade, I had never set foot on a college or university [campus]… I feel like that’s where it really hit me that there are locations for me to pursue something and do something with my life.”

Gallegos said she feels she can help the children she teaches dream big because they see her as someone from Immokalee who has succeeded despite the odds. She said she thinks a lot about a quote by the boxer Canelo Alvarez that says you can do anything, even if you come from nothing.

“That resonates a lot with me because it is true: Coming from nothing and through organizations like this, I have everything,” she said. “I have a job; I have employment; I have health benefits. And bottom line, I’m not [working] in the sun, you know?”

Asked what she is most grateful for when it comes to the support she received as a child, she thinks back to the person who approved her Immokalee Foundation application in seventh grade and made everything that followed possible.

“I’m most grateful that a complete stranger gave me a chance,” she said. “Based on an application that seventh-grade me wrote, somebody gave me a chance to be in this program… Just having a fighting chance is what I’m grateful for. All the opportunities that they’ve given me has literally built me to who I am.

“It’s because someone gave me a chance. Someone wanted me to be successful. Someone saw success in that kid.”

‘Enjoy giving back’ Jeffrey Zacarias

Assistive technology assistant, Lighthouse of Collier

For Jeffrey Zacarias, his work at Lighthouse of Collier — which provides education and rehabilitation services to people who are blind or visually impaired — is especially rewarding because he knows firsthand what his clients are experiencing.

His vision grew progressively worse as a child, with a retinal detachment leaving him completely blind in his left eye.

Zacarias, who was born in Naples, was a patient at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also receives support from NCEF, and also became a Lighthouse of Collier client through attending summer camps and enrolling in transitional programs.

As he grew older, he started volunteering at Lighthouse during summers before joining the staff part-time as an assistive technology assistant, helping clients learn to use a variety of assistive technology devices that can aid them in living independently.

“Some of the work that I have done includes demos of magnification devices and scanners,” Zacarias explained in written answers to questions from The Naples Press. “Scanners are devices that read a document to blind individuals. I also teach people how to navigate their phones, focusing on the accessibility features that come with Android and Apple phones such as screen readers, which blind users can use to navigate their phones through gestures and speech output.”

He also teaches Lighthouse clients how to use the screen readers on their computers.

“Blind users can navigate their computers through a series of keyboard commands and speech output,” Zacarias said.

In recent months, Zacarias said he has been providing instruction on how to use the new Ray-Ban™ smart glasses.

“The Ray-Ban™ smart glasses were developed as a fashion trend,” he said, “but the visually impaired community has used them to get information about their surroundings through the use of artificial intelligence.”

Zacarias said he finds it extremely rewarding to see the improvement of clients he works with.

“Some clients come in the Lighthouse without knowing how to navigate their computers,” he said. “Seeing them progress from learning how to type to independently navigate their computers. I enjoy giving back because when I was younger, I did not have anyone to teach me any technology … I don’t want any blind person to feel like they do not have anyone to teach them technology. I don’t want them to feel like they have to teach themselves, because it’s extremely hard.”

He said he also enjoys contributing to Lighthouse by providing “a voice to those who may feel less represented,” noting the growth in the number of Spanish-speaking clients over the past few years.

“As a Spanish-speaking instructor, I am able to provide instruction to these clients in their native language,” he said, “and I am able to advocate for them because they may find it difficult to state their needs due to the language barrier.”

In addition to working part-time at Lighthouse, Zacarias is majoring in business management and minoring in real estate at the University of Central Florida, with a goal of developing products that help the visually impaired; he would also like to make financial apps more accessible for screen readers and other accessibility tools.

Zacarias said he is grateful to Lighthouse of Collier for many things, including kayaking and fishing trips as he was growing up.

“Lighthouse of Collier has helped me in so many ways because it provided me with unforgettable experiences as a kid and also allowed me to build relationships that I can now use years later to progress in my career goals,” he said. “By surrounding myself with other visually impaired people, my mental health has improved because I have found a sense of belonging. I have begun to accept my vision loss and embrace the things about me that make me stand out.”