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VIRGINIA AGUILAR-RILEY: I grew up, was born and raised
in Upland, right down the hill.
I was raised in a very traditional Hispanic family.
I'm the only girl.
I have two brothers.
And at that time, college was not
something that entered into the conversation for a female,
but I always knew I wanted to do something.
And I have an aunt who's--
when I was a child, maybe 7 or eight years old,
she was in high school, and I used
to see her practicing her typing.
I thought was fascinating.
You know, I'd like to work in an office.
So when I got to high school, that's
what I told my counselor, and they talked to me
about going to Chaffey.
And here I landed at Chaffey College.
Chaffey College is a blessing to this community
to have a school like this here.
After I graduated from Chaffey, I
helped my brothers, who were younger,
come through Chaffey, because I had a job by then.
On the day I started school here at Chaffey,
the Ontario school district called
me to report for work that afternoon.
I started as a two hour a day, and Chaffey
had a work experience program, so I linked those two things up
and got credit.
I had no idea that this was going to happen,
but I stayed at the school district,
and I remained there for 47 years.
And I retired as Administrative Assistant
to the Deputy Superintendent.
In my role at the school district,
we dealt with a lot of families who were in need.
Students who were not going to school,
because they needed clothing, didn't have shoes.
I wanted to help those families.
Then I joined Soroptimists of Montclair,
a women's service organization, and that kind
of evolved from being a member of Soroptimists
and I joined some other clubs and I
got involved in the community, and always
looking for projects that would help young people especially.
One of the themes for Soroptimists
is empowering women and girls to achieve their dreams.
It's kind of like somebody helped me achieve my dream
by coming to Chaffey college.
I'm not an educator, but I do want
to help guide these women and girls to achieve their dreams.
And then maybe they'll stay here, and they'll do the same
and turn and help our community grow.
There are so many opportunities out there
to help other community members.
You never want to think, oh, I know they're selling tickets
to that raffle that's going to provide
a scholarship for someone, but somebody else will do it.
You need to step in.
It's always better to get involved
and be part of the process rather
than somebody else will do it.
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