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It is not easy, but it is working. That’s the takeaway from anyone connected to VIDA. “I highly believe in our slogan, which is educating one life at a time,” says Felida Villarreal, president and CEO of the South Texas nonprofit. “If we’re able to make the slightest impact in just one person’s life, that’s truly transformational for our community.”
In the Rio Grande Valley, where more than 90 percent of residents are Latino, and about a third of the population lives in poverty, that kind of transformation can be generational.
Villarreal leads the Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA), an organization that has spent three decades rewriting what’s possible for low-income, first-generation students in one of the nation’s poorest metropolitan areas. VIDA pairs tuition assistance with high-interaction case management and wraparound supports like childcare, transportation, and emergency aid. Throughout the student journey, VIDA stays close enough to students’ lives to catch the moments when things can get dicey and help them work through it.
“We don’t just give out a scholarship and wish our participants good luck,” Villarreal says. “We start with the participants’ needs at the center of everything we do, and then we build a program that directly responds to those needs.”
That design choice shows up in the numbers. VIDA served 860 students last year and is on pace to serve 1,000 in 2026. Year-to-year persistence routinely exceeds 90 percent, and graduation rates consistently exceed 80 percent, far outpacing national averages for public two-year institutions and for Latino students in particular.
It also shows up in the stories.
From Student to Job Provider
About a decade ago, a young woman named Adriana Moreno walked into VIDA at a breaking point. Her father, the family’s breadwinner, had lost his job. Money was so tight that college felt like a far-off dream, not a real option. “Going to school was not really an option to her,” Villarreal recalls. “Her family was really, really struggling.”
VIDA helped change the equation. With financial support and a counselor who stayed glued to her progress, Moreno enrolled in an associate degree program in nursing. That first credential opened the door to a stable job. The experience of being believed in opened something else. Moreno kept going and would ultimately earn her doctoral nursing degree, becoming an entrepreneur in the process.
Today, Moreno is no longer just a nurse. She’s an employer and a community anchor, running three businesses in the Rio Grande Valley, which include a family medical practice, an aesthetics clinic, and a wellness spa that together expand access to care and create professional jobs close to home. For Villarreal, Moreno is the embodiment of what can happen when Latino talent has the right scaffolding.
“Just seeing the impact that our programs have in our local community,” Villarreal says. “Not just at the individual level and their family, but now also empowering these individuals to become very successful entrepreneurs and giving back. That’s another level of workforce and economic development. That’s how you move a region.”
Some VIDA success stories begin in more fragile circumstances.
Compassion Meets Resolve
Last year, a single mother in VIDA’s nursing pathway came in for what was supposed to be a routine one-on-one counseling session. Halfway through, her counselor realized something was off and started asking deeper questions. The student finally admitted that she and her two young children had been living out of their car, even as she continued going to class and turning in her assignments.
“It blew our mind in terms of how she was handling it all,” Villarreal says. “She was doing everything right in school, and at the same time she didn’t have a place to sleep.”
Within days, the organization had tapped a community partner that provides transitional housing to single mothers returning to school. The family moved into an apartment. The student stayed enrolled, graduated with her associate degree in nursing, and is already back on campus working toward her bachelor’s.
That is the kind of support VIDA prides itself on providing in toughest moments. Many participants are first-generation college students navigating financial aid, institutional bureaucracy, and complex family dynamics on their own. Villarreal has built a team that expects crises and knows how to respond with compassion and grace.
“I really think that strong leadership, especially in the nonprofit or public service world, has to start with listening,” Villarreal says. “You need feedback and input from the individuals whose lives you’re impacting every day. If you want to be successful or impactful in any way, you have to address those challenges before they become barriers to college completion.”
