As days were winding down before their graduation from Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Takoma Park, Maryland, two members of the class of 2022 there reflected on how that school community’s support helped them weather the COVID-19 pandemic and also personal challenges they faced as students.

They also spoke about what they learned from the example and hard work of their immigrant parents, and how the school fostered their dreams for the future as the first members of their families to go on to college.

Don Bosco Cristo Rey, a coeducational high school sponsored by The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the Salesians of Don Bosco, is part of the national Cristo Rey Network of schools, and it offers a rigorous college preparatory curriculum for minority students from families with limited economic means. The school is known for its innovative Corporate Work Study Program, where students gain experience working at leading Washington-area businesses, organizations and institutions and help pay for most of their education costs. Since the school’s first graduating class in 2011, 100 percent of Don Bosco Cristo Rey’s graduates have gained college acceptances.

Hilary Orozco

About two weeks before she would don her cap and gown and join 105 Don Bosco Cristo Rey classmates at their June 2 graduation, Hilary Orozco sat outside her school on a mild spring morning and spoke about her educational and personal journey there.

“My freshman year here was a difficult time for me. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with bone cancer,” she said. “The teachers were very understanding, and I always felt welcomed by staff and classmates.”

Orozco, 18, lives in Silver Spring and is the daughter of Jorge Orozco and Ruth Lopez, both immigrants from Guatemala, and her younger brother Jason is a seventh grader at a neighborhood school.

The Don Bosco Cristo Rey senior said that she has been in remission from the cancer for two and one-half years, after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Describing the support she received from the school community during that challenging time, she remembered a time when “my classmates all made cards for me. I would read them in the hospital. That gave me motivation.”

Reflecting on her battle with cancer, she said, “That experience helped me appreciate life more, and the people around me.”

During her years at the school, Orozco participated in the Debate Club, the Model U.N., was a student ambassador and was also in the Guitar Club there. She volunteered with A Wider Circle, a Silver Spring outreach that provides clothing, household supplies, toys  and other items to people in need.

In March 2020 after the COVID-19 shutdown, all four of her family members got the virus, “but we all did fine and recovered quickly,” she said.

As Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School pivoted to online learning, Orozco said that “staying engaged in Zoom meetings helped me.. (and) participating in classes helped me stay involved. The teachers did a great job with teaching. They understood our situation.”

A special support to her during the pandemic and throughout her school years has been her cousin, Yari Orozco.

“Yari and I, we’ve grown up together, we’re about one month apart,” she said, noting that during the pandemic, it was difficult not having social interactions with other people, but she and her cousin supported each other, staying in contact with calls and text messages, and helping each other with homework. “It meant a lot to me,” she said.

Asked what she learned from the pandemic, Orozco  said, “Appreciating the things we had. Staying inside all the time isn’t fun. I missed school a lot. I enjoyed being in the building and seeing my classmates and teachers.”

Orozco, whose family attends Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Bethesda, said her faith definitely helped her during the pandemic. “Praying really helped us get through it, especially when other family members got sick, prayer helped us,” she said.

During her freshman year in the school’s Corporate Work Study Program, Orozco worked as a teacher’s assistant at St. Augustine Catholic School in Washington, helping the first and fifth grade teachers.

“What I learned from that was to have patience,” she said, adding that she enjoyed working with the children as they were engaged with their schoolwork. 

The next year, she worked as an administrative assistant at Don Bosco Cristo Rey, which she said helped her get over her shyness. “It kept me on my feet. A lot of parents called. It helped me use my Spanish more,” she said.

Then as a junior during the pandemic, she worked virtually from home with United Way. This past semester, her corporate work experience has been at the Jones Day law firm in Washington, and assisting with various duties there has sharpened her communication skills, she said.

This fall, Orozco will be attending Georgetown University, where she hopes to study culture and politics, and she will be the first member of her family to attend college.

“For me, it makes my family very proud. My parents came here so my brother and I would receive a better education than they received,” she said.

Her father works as a plumber, and her mother cleans houses, and Orozco said she is inspired by their example and encouragement.

Orozco said her father has always emphasized “that I need to learn as much as I can. My love for reading comes from him,” she said, adding that her mother “works extremely hard and puts us first before anything. She gets up at the crack of dawn to get things done.”

As for her future, Orozco said, “I want to go to law school and potentially become a civil rights attorney. People should have their rights, that motivates me to help others. I’m all about giving back to the community.”

And she’ll remember the sense of community at Don Bosco Cristo Rey and how students and staff know each other and care about each other, something she experienced during her cancer battle and the pandemic.

“Don Bosco Cristo Rey has a large emphasis on family, and Don Bosco Cristo Rey feels like family to me,” Orozco said.

Joanna Cazares

Another member of Don Bosco Cristo Rey’s class of 2022, Joanna Cazares, said the pandemic shutdown and the resulting isolation “was really rough for me… I kind of just had to rough it out. I knew things were going to get better.”

Cazares said she struggled during that time, feeling depression and anxiety, adding, “I felt disconnected from the world for a long time.”

She said that Rebekah Taravella, a member of the staff of the Corporate Work Study Program, offered her caring support. “I talked to her every day,” she said, noting that one thing they discussed was “how to come back to something that was put on pause for a really long time. She just let me know everything is going to work out, everything is going to be okay.”

A 17-year-old resident of Brentwood, Maryland, Cazares’s mother is Elva Lucero and her stepfather is Jaime Garcia, and she has a stepbrother and a younger sister. Both those parents are immigrants from Mexico. Their family attends Mass at St. James Church in Mount Rainier.

“My dad works in construction, and my mom is a janitor,” she said. “…I’ve learned from them how to make smart choices, they instilled that in me, (and) how to work hard” to pursue an education.

For Cazares, being the first in her family to go to college “means leading the way for my sister and the rest of my family members who want to go to college. It’s building a way for generational wealth for my family. It means a lot for me to go off to college and get off on the right foot.”

Cazares initially plans to attend Prince George’s Community College and study finance. “I want to go into investment banking,” she said, explaining that interest was spurred by  her Corporate Work Study experience during her senior year, when she worked with endowments in Georgetown University’s investments office, where she will have an internship this summer.

As a freshman and sophomore in that program, she worked as an administrative assistant in the office of Georgetown University’s president. As a junior during the COVID shutdown, she took part in a virtual program offered by Accenture, a professional services firm, where she and fellow students learned workplace skills.

“I absolutely loved the Corporate Work Study Program. It was the highlight of the week. It made me feel like a grownup,” she said. “I started out as a 14-year-old going into a corporate setting.” 

Working in Georgetown University’s investment office, “was like opening the door” for her, she said, making her want to pursue that as a career. “I learned so much about the field and the things that go into it… My plan is to go into a career where I can one day maybe start something to help the community with investments.”

Reflecting on her experiences at Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Cazares – who also ran track and participated in the Catholic Math League there – said she will especially remember the teachers who helped her along the way, like Mrs. Taravella.

“I’ll always know there’s somebody who cares for me. Everybody in school has one person they can go to,” she said.