By Andrew Firestone

- Photo by Andrew Firestone

The closing of the Ames Security Envelope factory on Somerville Avenue was a local setback in the nationwide recession: over 150 local jobs lost at one of the city’s oldest businesses.

“That was a shock for all of us,” said Virginia Sorabella an Ames employee for 13 years. “We cried. We thought it was going to be the end of the world.”

For the workers, who face a sparse job market, employment prospects were grim. That’s where the Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences (SCALE) entered the picture with a $79,000 grant.

At the SCALE English for Speakers of Other Languages program, 20 ex-Ames factory workers are getting on with life, learning skills in an intensive 20-hour a week course that director Janice Philpot hopes will give displaced workers a “21^st century skill-set.”

The curriculum includes lessons in English, as well as technology and communication.

The program began when SCALE administrators Betty Stone and Ngaiu Schiff applied for a grant from the Regional Employment Board after learning of the workers’ plight. Now many of the workers-turned-students reveled in the opportunity to finally devote time to enriching themselves and sharpening their skills.

“We worked for too long there,” said Jose Alverez, a 23-year veteran of the Ames factory. “We worked overtime. We had no time to go to school, learn something. So for me, it’s the first time that I’m coming to school.”

“We never thought we would need an education,” said Sorabella. “We were doing in life what we needed to do without an education. We were happy the way we were.”

Without English, Anna Guzman said she felt overwhelmed even though she had tried to learn the language in the past. “Before I was scared to go to a restaurant, because I didn’t know what to say,” she said. “Now I can go to any restaurant and buy whatever I want. But before, nothing.”

“I was afraid talking to people,” said Alverez. “Even for a clinic appointment, I was afraid to talk to the doctor I had to bring somebody to talk for me.” Alverez said he had to bring his children to translate for him for most important meetings.

But, with SCALE’s brand of phonics-based language learning, Alverez and co-worker Daisy Vasquez are quickly making up for lost time. “I’m feeling good in the English class, proud,” said Vasquez. “The teachers have a lot of patience for us.” Vasquez said her children have noticed her enhanced English already. “They can hear the difference,” she said.

Alverez was also pleased with his progress. “It’s difficult,” he said, of learning English at his age, “but the way the teacher teaches us, it’s easy.”

Another area of 21^st century knowledge gleaned in class is in computer skills. “Over here is the first time I used a computer,” said Vasquez. Guzman says she can now one-up her son whose competency at computers that had long mystified her. “Now I think that I’m very, very good at them,” she said.

The students felt blessed by the opportunity they were given in the face of uncertainty. “This is a light that we got,” said Sorabella. “Like we were blindfolded, and all of a sudden you take off the blindfold and be able to see again.”

Philpot was quick to note the increased ability of these students, who will be given job placement advice by Career Source and the Career Place counselors at the end of their program. “To be able to advocate for themselves and to advocate for their children, that’s the empowerment of learning English,” she said.

Of the opportunities for the future, the students seemed ready and excited. “It’s like one door is closed, and they opened another one,” said Alverez.

“We know for sure it’s going to be a better one,” said Sorabella, who says with the help and support of her long-time co-workers she wants to become a bank teller. “In a few months down the road, I think I can do it.”