TAMPA TRIBUNE

February 10, 2010

RCMA honors longtime employees

By BILL COATS

When Andrella Najera, Juanita Galan, Irma Chappa and Salma Haidermota were young, none planned a career in child care work.

Haidermota was in the United States to obtain her master's degree before returning home to India. Najera, Galan and Chappa had all worked in the fields during their childhoods.

Yet the four South Shore women recently celebrated long careers with the Redlands Christian Migrant Association, one of the state's largest nonprofit day care providers. Each was honored during a Jan. 25 luncheon in Plant City for 30 years of service to the organization.

RCMA's executive director, Barbara Mainster, marveled at their durability.

"It's unheard of for people to stay in child care for 30 years," Mainster said.

Haidermota, Najera, Galan and Chappa all thanked the RCMA for encouraging them to become educated and paying them to care for children.

"No university would have taught me so much," said Haidermota.

RCMA operates more than 75 child care centers. In the farming areas of Tampa Bay, RCMA has 16 centers serving more than 2,000 children, plus a charter school in Wimauma. All the centers are tucked into rural Florida farming communities, and employ staffs drawn heavily from the migrant farmworker communities they serve.

Apart from Haidermota, all of the event's 30-year honorees came to RCMA directly from farm work. Galan worked in the fields along with her 12 brothers and sisters. Chappa met her future husband picking tomatoes at age 14.

But she left farm work for good on the day she was asked to be a substitute teacher at an RCMA center in Immokalee.

"That changed my life forever," Chappa said.