Photo: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Julio Castro lived an unforgettable day this Thursday when his high school students in Los Angeles gave him a very special surprise and generous: a car that he needed so much.
It turns out that Castro lives in the area of Santa Clarita and her job as a math teacher is in the Beverly Hills area, where YULA Boys High School is located in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood. He did not have a car and so he had to spend an average of two hours to make the daily trip by public transport and the same on the way back.
To get there on time to school, father of three young children usually got up at 4: 30 am, he would ride a scooter about seven miles from his apartment to the bus stop and board the bus there 550 on the way to Century City, to complete the drive with another mile to campus. And he would come home until 9: 30 pm.
In the presence of TV cameras and reporters who were called to the campus, Mr. Castro, from 31 years, received a Mazda CX-3 car model 2019, acquired thanks to the initiative of a group of students who appreciate him very much and who took on the task of organizing a campaign, which was successful and included donations from companies, non-profit organizations, and also school raffles, totaling more than $30,000 Dollars.
Prior to the delivery of the vehicle, Castro was called to a purported teacher appreciation event in the school gym. Once there, his name appeared on blackboards, a video with messages for him was projected and the students made a “corridor” for him, forming a tunnel with his hugs. A whole party in his honor
The teacher is math teacher Julio Castro, who previously had to commute hours every day by bus and scooter to get to school. He said he had absolutely no idea, and does not find his particularly heroic efforts. He just loves the students and teaching. pic.twitter.com/cpRZbLnZ1g
— emily rahhal she/her (@RahhalEmily) August 25, 2022
“I felt surprised. I felt special,” Castro said for channel ABC7. “Thank you my students. They are like my children too”.
Mr. Castro also received gasoline and insurance for a year
The generous gift to the teacher includes one year of gasoline and one year of vehicle insurance. One of Castro’s students said that the teacher always helps them without expecting anything in return and explained his own case:
“He made sure that I understood all the material by sitting with me during his lunch breaks and sacrificing his time after school instead of taking his bus home,” said Joshua Gerendash, a senior at this Jewish school. The young man was the one who long ago realized that his teacher was looking on the internet for a car that he could buy with $1, 500 Dollars.
Castro struggled not to break down, but commented that now that he has a car he plans to take his children to school every morning.
“ And then when I get here with more free time, I can use it in my lesson plans. Later on my way back, the traffic will not stop being bad, but I will be able to be in time for dinner”, he added.
Castro was born in Peru and says who is the first in his family to graduate from high school and college. He is not Jewish, but when he applied for a vacancy at YULA he thought that his way of teaching mathematics might appeal to them.
Lately, the teacher has earned the appreciation of the school for his humility and spirit.
“I have relatives that they don’t have papers, that they are undocumented, that they have three jobs and earn less than me and that they don’t complain”, he told the Los Angeles Times. “I am so thankful to have an amazing couple and amazing kids. So that ride (to school) is literally nothing.”
Perhaps that effort to get around, similar to that of many Angelenos, seems little to Castro, but what cannot be denied is the positive impact it has already had on his students.