Latino youth and families make up a sizeable and growing proportion of the population in Sussex County. Education, health services, nutrition, housing, and employment are crucial priorities for this community. Current barriers rooted in transportation, documentation, and employment entrap them in a cycle of poverty and transience. Today, few Latino youth in Sussex County go on to college, and very few will escape poverty once they hit adulthood.

Latino communities in Sussex County, Delaware are continuously growing, and as they expand, so does the urgency around access to basic needs that many take for granted. Access to education, health services, nutrition, housing, and jobs lie out of reach. La Colectiva was formed as a response to this opportunity gap, and has since made it its mission to connect Latino families to the services they need to thrive. Vanessa Rodriguez works with La Colectiva as part of a team that is prototyping a Seamless Navigation Hub, which will function as a place for Latino families to identify life-changing resources with the help of a network of service navigators.