Shortly after morning classes finished on a Friday afternoon, the school auditorium began to fill with students and staff sporting white T-shirts with a child’s colorful drawing of a house. This is the official uniform of this year’s Fannie Mae’s Help the Homeless Walkathon and these are the supporters dedicated to raising money for the cause.

The Carlos Rosario School has been participating in the Walkathon since the fundraiser’s beginnings in 2005. Proceeds from the School’s mini-walk are donated to L’Arche, an organization that serves people with intellectual disabilities. Annually Carlos Rosario School students and staff raise about $15,000 for the organization.

This year’s mini-walk kicked off with a bilingual presentation led by L’Arche representative, Pierre Sanders. Sanders grabbed the audience’s attention with the stomps and claps of a dynamic step performance followed by an audience participation game with student volunteers. Sanders concluded the presentation with an inspirational message reminding students that by participating in the mini-walk they are saying to themselves and to the larger community, “I am beautiful, I am special, I am unique,” and “you are beautiful, you are special, you are unique.”

During the walk, students chatted, cheered, and waved signs like “Hope for the Homeless” and “Carlos Rosario Helps the Homeless Make Someone Smile”. Carlos Rosario GED student, Octavio de la Luz, who has participated in the walk for the past three years, welcomes this chance to give back. “We [the students] are supported by the community and the government,” said Octavio. “We should give that support to someone else.”

On Friday, October 21st Carlos Rosario School welcomed 20 representatives from a wide-range of European countries. The visitors, professionals from both the public and private sectors, are recipients of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, which provides emerging European leaders a chance to explore institutions, politics, and cultures in the U.S.

As part of the fellows’ 24-day, 5-city tour, Washington, D.C. provides a great opportunity to expose award recipients to many viewpoints on both the federal and local level. The goal of the Carlos Rosario School visit was for the fellows to be immersed at the ground level in something very local and tangible while learning more about immigrant education and integration.

After a brief introduction of the school and its model, fellows were given a tour of the classes and spoke with students. Then the visitors took a lunch break with students in the cafeteria where they enjoyed a black forest cake prepared by a team of Carlos Rosario culinary arts students led by German student, Doris Kuehn.

Fellows called Carlos Rosario School a model for how to integrate immigrants into society that European countries could learn from.

The Carlos Rosario School is enthusiastically looking to the future and toward an opportunity to expand Workforce Development programs thanks to a grant through The Community Foundation’s Walmart Washington@Work Initiative. This $1.25 million multi-year initiative aims to support organizations like Carlos Rosario School that are providing Washington, DC residents with the skills and training needed to secure employment in these tough economic times.

Grant funds will be used to increase enrollment numbers, enhance the culinary arts training program to include more basic math and technology, expand ServSafe certification courses, and create a retail career training program.

“We are excited to be awarded this grant and to be part of Walmart’s investment in Washington, D.C.,” noted Allison R. Kokkoros, Chief Academic Officer of the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School. “This award enables us to take 250 students off of our waiting list of over 1,000 applicants and equip them with the job skills, certifications, and support necessary to enter into careers in the Retail and Hospitality industries.”