El Paso has a special place in my heart as it is the home of my daughter and her family. Annual conference delegates heard a report from the Lydia Patterson Institute which provides a high school education near the border for needy students. Of the 72 graduating seniors this spring, 70 are going on to college. The following information is from a CNN report on Lydia Patterson Insititue May 20, 2009
Since Mexican border towns became battlefields in the drug war, American towns like El Paso have become refuges for middle- and upper-class Mexicans.
For students at Lydia Patterson, who live in Juarez and cross the bridge each weekday, the small, United Methodist preparatory school has become a safe haven in the months since drug-related violence in Juarez has intensified.Our students are exceptional, and I always tell them I respect them and I admire their courage because they're living through this horrible time," says the school's president, Socorro Brito de Anda.
About 70 percent of the institute's 459 students live in Juarez. Some are American citizens with Mexican parents; others are Mexican citizens who carry a student visa to any one of three U.S.-Mexico border checkpoints in El Paso that serve tens of thousands of students, white-collar workers and day laborers each day.
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