Rotarians recognize Valdosta Latino Association
Oct. 5—VALDOSTA — Luke Voight, treasurer of the Valdosta Latino Association, addressed his fellow North Valdosta Rotarians about the organization's cultural impact on the community in anticipation of the annual Expo Latino.
Voight said he developed a love for the Spanish language and Latino culture through his Spanish lessons at Lowndes High School and his work in communicating with Spanish-speaking customers at Winn-Dixie in Lake Park.
"It got to a point where they (Winn-Dixie) wanted to promote me and have me work every Sunday, because that's when the migrant workers were coming on buses, literally three, four buses, with a couple hundred at a time. I saw that learning Spanish would actually benefit my career and it eventually developed into a fascination and general appreciation for the culture," he said.
"I went on to take six semesters of Spanish in high school and college and my then roommate in college was Mexican. We rarely talked in English; there were so many opportunities to immerse myself with language."
This fascination laid the groundwork for the eventual formation of the VLA. Voight met Arthur Morin, founder of BrandSouth Marketing and president of VLA, at a Rotary event in 2019. Morin pointed out that while Valdosta had networking organizations, it didn't really have any civic organizations.
"We just wanted to start a new formal organization to help integrate some of the Hispanic folks in the community into South Georgia. First, we wanted to promote cultural change. We also wanted to provide accurate information about the various different resources for education and health care. At the end of the day, we want to help these folks pursue their American Dream through integration with South Georgians. So those all kind of come together, but really, we're trying to be like this bridge between the Hispanic community and non-Hispanic community," he said.
According to organization representatives, VLA accomplished this goal through emphasizing four pillars — education, business, social services and culture, with English as a Second Language classes, partnerships with Goodwill and the Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce and events such as Fiesta Latina.
"As far as Fiesta Latina goes, the primary focus is migrant workers and their families. So, we've got various different services like the Department of Health that comes out. We have types of health screenings that come out. And then, of course, we provide resources on literacy programs education and of course in our relationship, the very heart of Hispanic culture. We're working on expanding that but that's really just primarily focused on the mark because again, we're trying to foster this exchange and this development within the community," he said.
"And, then of course, we have different types of education programs with this ESL course, at the library. Everything from really basic English to intermediate English. But not only that it's open to anybody who is not a native English speaker but it has been tremendously successful due to expanding into other levels because just the basic and intermediate was getting full we had to add more. Goes to show just how impactful these efforts are."
While Fiesta Latina was canceled due to Hurricane Ian, VLA will hold Expo Latino, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, at the Willis L. Miller Library.
Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Miller-Cody also attended the presentation and she said she would support VLA events due to the sizable Hispanic community in her district, District 1.
VLA hosts its regular meetings on the fourth Thursday of every month at the Miller Library.
For more information, visit valdostalatino.org.
