This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, is Barbie Garayua Tudryn — a tutor and school counselor at Frank Porter Graham Bilingual Elementary School.

“Barbie is an excellent school counselor, but really the more we got to know her, the more we discovered, just what a powerful advocate and community builder, she is,” said Maria Estorino, a parent at the school.

Barbie is the founder of Mariposas, a group for Latina at FPG and beyond that teachers empowerment and civic engagement.

“She saw a need and the students that she serves at FPG and she took action to address it in a way that is incredibly engaged with not just the students, but their families as well.”

In addition to regular meetings with the girls and their families, Mariposa also includes a scholarship program and annual trips as well during non-pandemic times.

Mariposas also spent the last year working on a book titled El Regalo De Lenna (Lenna’s Gift) that is available at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. 100 percent of the proceeds from sales of the book go to the Mariposas Scholarship Fund, which has awarded over $10,000 in scholarships to first-generation Latinx students during the last three years.

Here’s the description of the book:

In this allegorical tale of transformation and liberation, we meet River, who aspires to greatness by becoming “big and strong like Ocean.” When River meets Lenna, a wise, liberated, and determined girl with a remarkable plan, River learns that excessive power always comes at someone else’s expense, and that true fortitude comes from valuing and elevating everyone’s stories, and from asking one very simple question, “How can I help?”

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