Our Mission

 Los Ayudantes is a tutoring/mentoring program for newly arrived immigrant middle-school students who are learning English as a second language.

The program started as a partnership between St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Menlo Park, community volunteers, and the McKinley Institute of Technology (MIT)  a Redwood City middle school. Our mission is to provide these recent immigrant adolescents—one of the at-risk groups in our community—with the academic tools and support for long-term academic success and with the life skills for productive, satisfying futures. It is a well recognized fact that a solid command of the English language is essential to a rewarding life in this country.

We offer in-school tutoring and mentoring services and programs provided by a diverse network of community leaders, concerned citizens, and professionals some of whom are immigrants themselves as well as bilingual and bicultural.

Our ultimate goal is to encourage these students to realize their full potential as learners and community members in their country of adoption while at the same time instilling in them a sense of pride in their country, culture, and language of origin, all of which builds confidence and self-esteem in these youngsters.