Dollar Bank's Ongoing Partnership with Esperanza Serves Cleveland's Hispanic Community

Esperanza, a non-profit located in Northeast Ohio, has been a partner with Dollar Bank for over 15 years.

Esperanza was founded in 1983 as a community project to improve educational opportunities for the Hispanic community by motivating and recognizing academic achievement through scholarships, according to Chief Executive Officer and President Victor Ruiz.

“We learned as we grew that we needed to support our students and our community with more than just scholarships,” Ruiz said. “We’ve been providing programming for students to help them navigate the educational system whether that be mentoring, tutoring or just learning.”

Esperanza offers its programs to students in several schools throughout Cleveland.

“We work very closely with the principal and the staff to fill the needs that they [the students] have,” Ruiz said. “It could be anything from tutoring and mentoring to other enrichment activities, going on college visits, bringing in speakers or even connecting them with a mentor, something we very much believe in.”

Mentoring is a large focus of Esperanza, with the idea that it’s a great way to connect the community.

“A lot of times our youth need someone who wants to see them be successful,” Ruiz said. “They meet for 30-60 minutes a month. It’s really to make a connection with students who are under a lot of pressure, to give them a different perspective, expose them to things that our students would not normally have access to.”

“How could 30 to 60 minutes a month have such a big impact? We know that mentoring in general, when done consistently and correctly can be one of the most impactful programs for a student. It's something we work hard to connect our students with and the relationships are sustained because the results are tremendous.”

Dollar Bank has been involved with Esperanza for many years. “As far back as I can remember, we’ve been partners with Esperanza,” Dorothy Curtis, Vice President of Community Development said. “We’ve been involved with them for at least 15 years, if not more. Whether it be through providing sponsorships or conducting financial education, we’ve always been involved.”

“As long as I’ve been here, we’ve been supported by Dollar Bank,” Ruiz said. “Dollar Bank has been one of the most committed and steady supporters of our Fiesta of Hope events and of our scholarship programs.”

“Dollar Bank has also come in and provided our students, regardless of age, with financial education classes and activities that we’ve been doing for a long time now.” Ruiz said.

Fiesta of Hope is an event held every year by Esperanza that helps make higher education possible by awarding 100 scholarships to college-bound Hispanic students.

“It’s a culmination of so many things coming together from the students celebrating their education path, to showing the hard work that our staff has done throughout the year to bring the students to this point,” Ruiz said.

“We’ve been a part of Fiesta of Hope every year. We haven’t missed one since I have been here,” Curtis said. “It’s really important for us to support the event and the scholarships that they are giving out every year.”

According to Ruiz, Esperanza has a 99% college retention rate, 30% above the national average, thanks to their post-secondary programs that include mentoring, and the scholarships they provide to students.

Not only students going on to post-secondary education can benefit from the programs, as Esperanza helps everyone regardless of age.

"We do programming with individuals through all phases of their lives. Our work with adults goes way back, but it was primarily focused on English as a second language,” Ruiz said. “As we’ve continued to grow and heard what our community needed, we learned that there are needs to continue their learning journey too.”

“We started a partnership with Cuyahoga Community College, where they are bringing resources and provide some classes and short-term certifications programs, things like that,” Ruiz said. “During the [COVID-19] pandemic, there was a big need for equipment and digital literacy. There was a realization that a lot of people in our community didn’t know how to use them in a way that they could do online learning or work from home, so we started providing more digital literacy classes focused on how to use computers and laptops as a tool for employment and growing.”

Esperanza stands as the sole nonprofit organization in Ohio that offers academic materials, audio resources and instructional support in Spanish for those pursuing a General Education Diploma (GED), according to Ruiz.

“As we look to the future, there’s a demand for more certifications, badges, continuous learning by workers and we’re trying to figure out what space we could be in to help our community access these resources.” Ruiz said.

The impact Esperanza has had in the community does not go unnoticed, according to Curtis.

“Their impact in the community has been nothing but positive,” Curtis said. “Everybody respects them as an organization. No matter where you go, it's one of the organizations that people look up to in the Hispanic community. They’ve proven themselves to be true and they’ve had individuals who have gone through their programs and come back to give to the organization.”

“They really emphasize the importance of education and strengthening students academically across all ages, and it’s really been great for the community.” Curtis said.

Both Curtis and Ruiz are enthusiastic about the Dollar Bank partnership, furthering it and what that means to the community.

“I’m excited about us building our partnership further, bringing people to our Clark Office to use the community room, and making the things we do with them a community event,” Curtis said.

“We’re very grateful and we know it leads to career opportunities for our students and connections with our corporate sponsors,” Ruiz said. “Our relationship with Dollar Bank has been anchored and it has been wonderful, we’re looking forward to continuing it.”

About Dollar Bank

Dollar Bank has assets of more than $11.5 billion. Today, Dollar Bank operates more than 90 locations throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Virginia and has over 1,500 employees. For more than 168 years, Dollar Bank has grown to become the largest mutual bank in the United States, committed to providing the highest quality of banking services to individuals and businesses. Dedicated to aiding the communities it serves, Dollar Bank supports quality of life initiatives, financial literacy programs and organizations devoted to helping individuals and families in need. Dollar Bank (www.dollar.bank) is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.