TOP STORY >>Reaching out at the Rock III: Teaching off the clock

By Christy Hendricks
Combat Airlifter staff writer

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of articles about the efforts of Team Little Rock Members to volunteer in the local community.

Senior Airman Cecelia Ortiz-Barreiro, a 19th Force Support Squadron journeyman, works in the dinning hall, where she cooks main entrees and side items, and helps supervise contract cooks. But on Mondays, her day off, she helps kids read.

“I help them understand what a word is, how to interpret or identify a word,” said Ortiz-Barreiro. “I help them with their classwork – spelling, English, math.” Since January, she has volunteered for two hours each Monday for Barbra Sanders and Kathlynne Pflughoeft’s second-grade classes at Bayou Meto Elementary School.

When PCSing to Little Rock Air Force Base, Ortiz-Barreiro said she wanted to “get into a routine, to volunteer at a youth center or school.”

During a newcomers briefing Ortiz-Barreiro attended, Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher told attendees that volunteering at schools is one of the best ways to get involved in the community. “Bayou Meto was close to my house,” she said. “So I went there and filled out the paperwork.

“My first class, I have the same two students. They tell me some goofy stuff,” she said. “My second class, they’re fun. I always have different students. They fight over who gets to read with me.

“I like it a lot,” Ortiz-Barreiro said. “Before, I kind of thought I wanted to be an art teacher, or counselor, but now I want to be a teacher, something more interactive.

“I’m looking into being a substitute teacher,” she continued. “I heard the Jacksonville schools were short of subs. I can get more hands-on training for when I retire (from the Air Force) and become a teacher.”

After her two hours at Bayou Meto Elementary, Ortiz-Barreiro also volunteers at the Jacksonville Animal Shelter for about an hour every Monday.

“I play with the cats. If I do interact with the dogs, it’s the puppies,” she said. “I take them out to walk. I take the cats out of their cages. They seem to be relieved to be out, to get to stretch out.”

Ortiz-Barreiro worked with kids on her previous base, Dover Air Force Base, face painting and doing arts and crafts on family nights.

“I like doing kids stuff,” she said. “And the kids enjoy it.”

She tried volunteering at an animal shelter while at Dover AFB, but “they had classes you had to take, and I could never make them.

“Here, it is much easier, which is good for the animals,” she said. “The more you play with them, the more they get used to people. It’s easier for them to get adopted.”

She plans to continue her volunteer work, no matter where she is stationed. “I think I would really like to go somewhere else and volunteer at an elementary school.”