By Anna Guido
Enquirer contributor

HAMILTON - At age 16, Carlos Ortega Morales left Mexico to live with his mother in Hamilton. He was unable to communicate in English.

Today, at age 21, he speaks the language well, has a steady job in manufacturing, and is enrolled in a class that supports his goal of going to college.

The literacy and cultural education class he attends is at the new Open Teaching System Center for Education at St. Julie Billiart's Fenmont Community Center, 229 N. 3rd St.

"This class helps me with culture and other things I missed from leaving school at 16," Mr. Morales said.

The center, established to serve the area's growing Hispanic population, is part of an extensive outreach of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. An estimated 50,000 people of Hispanic descent have immigrated to the Tristate in the past five years, according to the Rev. William J. Jansen, director of Hispanic Ministry for the archdiocese.

Besides Hamilton's new center at St. Julie's, the archdiocese operates centers in Carthage and Dayton and offers limited Hispanic Ministry services at satellite locations elsewhere in the Tristate.

"A great majority of Hispanics leave their country with barely a secondary education," said Concepcion Reyna, a volunteer at the Hamilton center. "We want to be able to educate them - not just on the GED (General Educational Development) - but on culture and society."

Ms. Reyna is one of five volunteers who run the Hamilton center.

A San Antonio native who lives in West Chester Township, Ms. Reyna said she saw firsthand the need for this service in her past job as outreach coordinator for the Butler County Department of Family Services.

"We all know new immigrants have multiple needs, but literacy education can and does help address their most basic needs," she said.

The literacy education class is held Sundays from 3 to 7 p.m. and has more than 30 students. Students work independently, but also have access three nights a week to a computer lab in another parish-owned building nearby.

Because the program is affiliated with the Colegio de Bachilleres in Mexico, tutors at the college also are available to assist local tutors and students through the Internet.

So far, everything needed to operate the center - including office space, equipment and staff - has been donated. Ms. Reyna said operating funds and more volunteers are needed. Student fees are nominal. Dina Bello y Bello, a former biologist with the Autonomous National University of Mexico, is the class instructor.

Ms. Bello y Bello said she was planning to do lay missionary work in Africa when she met the Rev. Mr. Jansen and decided to come to Hamilton instead.

For information, call the center at 895-6300.