A haven for 'backstretch babies'

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As a child, Torres said, “I hung out a lot around the track.”

She said, however, that she was fortunate because her parents could afford a babysitter for her and her brother, Angel, who is now 20 and recently graduated from St. John’s University with a finance degree. So, Torres said, the two were never left unattended.

Still, she said, her parents worked constantly. “I didn’t have my mother and father there for Christmas morning,” she said.

Torres spoke Spanish with her parents as a child and was placed in English as a Second Language classes for three years in elementary school. Now she speaks perfect English, with a Long Island accent. “Get me to say ‘coffee,’ and you’ll know where I’m from,” she joked.

English is Anna House’s primary language, though most of the children speak Spanish at home, Torres said. “We try to maintain English only because that’s what they’re going to hear in school,” she noted.

Torres said she loves Anna House’s annual graduation ceremony, when the children who are moving up to kindergarten dress in gold caps and gowns and stand tall before their parents, with smiles etched across their faces.

“I’m just so proud every time they go through,” she said.

 

To donate to Anna House, call Joanne Adams at (516) 488-2103 or email her at jadams@belmontchildcare.org. For more, check out belmontchildcare.org.

For part one of this series, see http://bit.ly/1olMWBb.

 

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