Theresa Cruz started working at Learning Grove in 2019, and that’s when she realized a glaring need for an organization to provide food, clothing and resource coordination to Hispanic and Latino families.
Cruz’s role with Learning Grove was to get parents more involved in their children’s education.
“We realized that these families—not that they weren’t interested, but other things were occupying their mental space, their bandwidth,” Curz said. “Like they needed help finding jobs, they needed housing; they needed food, they needed basic necessities.”
After the grant that Cruz worked under ended in September 2023, Cruz started FIESTA NKY to help fill that gap in services to the Hispanic and Latino communities in Northern Kentucky.
The doors officially opened on Jan. 3, though Cruz unofficially started services on Nov. 20, 2023. FIESTA operates out of Florence, at 7536 US Hwy. 42, and primarily serves Boone County.
In roughly three months, FIESTA has provided clothing to over 300 people, started an on-site emergency food pantry, coordinated resources, partnered with local agencies, and held food distribution events and other community events.
“The cool thing about what we do is that everything is culturally relevant,” Cruz said. “So, the food that we give them is culturally relevant; we don’t give them SpaghettiOs or mac and cheese or you know, Hamburger Helper that they don’t know what it is. We give them rice, beans, lentils, things that they use.”
The organization also helps people understand things like how to obtain utilities, looking for housing, enrolling their children in school, and understanding documents they get in the mail and need clarification on.
“Fiesta recognizes the lack of bilingual outreach provided by many nonprofit organizations to the Spanish-speaking community, leaving this population without access to essential services such as education, health, jobs, development and citizen participation,” said Cory Hernandez, Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission Financial Empowerment TBRA-Home Ownership counselor. “FIESTA aims to bridge this gap by providing individualized support to families in their native language, empowering them to navigate these systems and improve their lives.”
FIESTA NKY also works with organizations like EC LEARN to help with early childhood experiences.
“I have worked with the FIESTA offices and Theresa Cruz to reach families that have young children,” said Kim Ross, Early Childhood Community Engagement Specialist EC LEARN. “I have met several families and have been able to help them with information regarding early childhood education. I have conducted ages and stages evaluations a tool that helps parents understand their child’s development. Theresa has a heart for families and is a great support to the Hispanic community with young children.”
Cruz said she has been organizing events for the Hispanic and Latino communities since she worked at Learning Grove.
One of those events is the Hispanic Parent Leadership Conference held at the Ignite Institute in Erlanger. The event aims to get parents more involved in their child’s education by offering workshops, a keynote speaker, and community resources to help them understand why it is important to be involved.
The first year they held the event, in 2021, 29 people showed up. In the second year, they included new mental health and financial literacy resources and had 79 people attend. Last September, when they held it, Cruz said 341 people came.
The event always provides lunch and childcare to reduce barriers to why someone may not attend.
“I met Theresa in the fall of 2021 when I hosted a table in one of her first family events at Ignite Institute and she invited me to be part of the monthly FIESTA community partner meetings,” said Dagmar Morales, a programmer at Independence Branch Kenton County Public Library. “When I attended that first meeting, her energy, charisma and compromise to help the Hispanic and Latino community inspired me to support her in any way possible in the journey ahead. I’ve seen how much she has fought to keep the organization alive and thriving, how she keeps working against what affects our community but also celebrates every achievement that its members earn no matter how small.”
They have also held a community resource fair at the Kenton County Library with 40 different agencies. That event had 25 interpreters volunteer to go to each station with each family.
FIESTA NKY is holding a job fair in July on two different dates and times to accommodate folks.
“That’s specifically for the Hispanic community,” Cruz said. “So, these are employers that know and are aware of the fact that these are going to be limited English-speaking individuals. But we wanted to give these people the opportunity to meet employers and to be able to have a choice.”
FIESTA NKY is also hosting a “Celebration of Hispanic Families” in May at the YMCA in Burlington. Families will participate in rock climbing, rope courses, slingshots, archery, fishing, soccer, etc. Cruz said that this year, the YMCA is allowing them to expand the event to 400 people.
Cruz said she has been doing this work for eight years, and most people find her through word of mouth.
“We didn’t just open our doors and be like, ‘OK, come in,’ because they wouldn’t know who you are,” Cruz said. “It is showing up to events. It’s showing up in the community. It’s helping people. It’s showing up at mass and just talking to families about things that are happening, and when they see you enough, and they trust you, then it’s like, ‘ok, go talk to Theresa. She can help you.’”
Cruz said roughly 10 years ago, there were hardly any Hispanic and Latino people in NKY, but that started to change around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I got pulled into my specific role, we were already seeing the face of Northern Kentucky change,” Cruz said. “It wasn’t as much as it is now. Now, it has just boomed.”
Cruz said it’s hard to tell precisely how many Hispanic and Latino people live in the area because of the fear behind filling out paperwork and giving out personal information.
“Organizations like FIESTA are so important in our community not only because of the needs it relieves, but because it is important to keep the cultures and traditions alive and share them with everyone so we may understand,” Morales said. “The work that she does is contributing to change the future of our people it serves, and this will help to change the distorted image of our community.”