Project MANA - A Hunger Relief Agency

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: Irma LeBard - the friendly and helpful receptionist at the Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation - had her beginnings in a small village in Belize, Central America.

As you might expect, growing up in Belize would be very different from growing up in the United States.

"In Belize children go to elementary school until they finish the 5th grade. Then they go directly to high school. There is no middle school," said LeBard, and the students must buy their own desks, chairs and books.

LeBard was born into a family of eight children in the small village of Yo Cree in Belize, where she lived for 35 years.

"When a child finished a grade, they moved their desk and chair to the next grade," she said.

But if they had outgrown the chair or desk, it would be passed on to the next member of the family or sold. She said that it was also that way with the textbooks. "I never wrote inside a book. I wrote everything in my exercise book," she said.

And it is still like that today in the little village.

"The biggest difference from how I grew up in Belize to how kids here grow up," LeBard said, "is that in Belize they stay with their parents no matter how old they are until they are married. And the youngest child always stays with the parents, even after marriage, in order to care for the parents until they pass away."

Growing up in Belize was fun, LeBard said. She played on a softball team and belonged to a youth group at the local Catholic Church.

"All through school and even after finishing elementary school, I continued to play on the softball team," She said.

She also helped her cousin care for an aunt with cancer who did not have children.

"I never worked. I always did chores and helped other family members that needed help," LeBard said.

She also would walk to the sugar cane fields to deliver food to the workers because her father was a sugar cane farmer. Walking or riding a bike was the way they traveled around.

"We did not have cars. We did not even have a television until the 80s. We would do our homework right after school before it was dark," she said.

Without electricity, they relied on kerosene after it was dark, LeBard said. "Usually everyone just went to sleep early at night."

She also said that sometimes the young people would go to see friends or families with flashlights and they always created their own entertainment.

As a teenager, LeBard's youth group started doing fundraisers to help build a new church. She said, "Our church was very old. It was made out of sticks and had a dirt floor."

One of the fundraisers was a fair, where she met her husband, George. She laughs when she says, "He remembers it different and has a different story."

But her version is that he paid $1 to dance with her. He was in Belize working with the Peace Corps and attended the fair. The young girls in the village charged $1 for each dance to raise money for the new church building.

"After the fair he asked me if he could walk me home," LeBard said. "I started talking with him and saw him in town."

Some girls on her softball team invited him to be their coach. So they started seeing each other more often.

The new church was finished in 1981 and George and Irma LeBard were the first couple to be married in the church.

However, it was not until 2007 that the church had a bell, after LeBard asked the Rotary Club of Incline Village if it would be willing to help purchase a bell and they donated the money.

When they were married, George was living in San Lazaro, where he had started a school.

"He started the school for children that had graduated from grade school but did not pass the national examination to enter high school or their parents were unable to afford to send them to high school," she recalled. "It was a regular school but also included agricultural training."

Then LeBard said drugs moved in to Belize.

"San Lazaro had a man that I guess was a drug lord. He had lots of men or guards working for him with machine guns. It was scary to live near him," LeBard said.

One night when her husband went to pick up some of the students to bring them back to the school they heard shots. As they drove along, they saw people were already dead on the road. George returned home to more trouble.

"Then one of the men with a machine gun came to our house. It was scary. We had money in our home at that time as we were preparing to move to Reno because George was finished with his work with the Peace Corps," she said.

After George explained to the man they did not have money, the man left.

After the LeBards moved to Reno, the ambassador of Belize asked George to take a job in Belize with the Coca Cola Company. So they moved back to her village, but the job did not work out because of problems between the government and Coca Cola.

" I stayed in my village and we opened a hardware store that I ran. George got a job with a program for Belize as a consultant," she said.

After about three years, the government introduced a new tax for small businesses, so they moved to Belize City. By this time the LeBards had three sons. In Belize City, George worked as an associate director for the Peace Corps for about five years. Then George took a job helping a Taiwanese school for three more years before they moved back to Reno.

Once in Reno, her husband started working for Project MANA, which at that time was located in Kings Beach before moving to Incline Village.

"I started working for Children's Cabinet with Virginia Miller, as her assistant," LeBard said.

But she also wanted to become a cosmetologist so she took night classes in Reno after work. After two years, she received her cosmetology license and worked for a salon in Reno.

"I traveled up and down the mountain for four years," she said.

In 2001, LeBard became a U.S. citizen.

The LeBards' children attended school in Incline Village. Two have already graduated from Incline High School and both are now attending the community college in Carson City where the LeBards now live. Both young men want to be firemen and are taking EMT courses. Their youngest son still attends Incline High School. LeBard said it is her dream to see her children finish school.

"Moving here was good for me and my family. I have had experiences like working. I had never had a job. I have learned a lot and have been doing things I never imagined I could do. It has made me more confident and want to learn more. I have a dream to go to school and take English to learn the rules and become more confident with the language. If I know something I want to know everything I can about it so that I can be the best at it," LeBard said.

In September of 2004, LeBard moved from the Children's Cabinet position to her current position at the Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation.

"My goal was to see the Hispanic community use the resources we have here. To help them feel comfortable coming here for help. The building is very big and intimidating when you are on the outside looking in and in need of help," she said.

She smiled when she said her job description was: "Receptionist and meeting room coordinator."

LeBard said, "It's fun working with the community especially with the Hispanic community. If they walk in and see a Hispanic person at the front desk it makes it easier to walk in the door and ask for help. So I started helping with Medicaid and WIC - no one was doing that before and there really is no one else doing it now."

LeBard can communicate in both English and Spanish so she is able to help in many ways. She said she has even had people call her on the telephone to translate to an employee.

Not long after she started, more and more people and families in crises started coming in for help - families without jobs or money to pay rent or bills.

"I have had to look to outside sources sometimes to help someone out," she said, praising the people of Incline that have come to her aid.

"The two Rotary Clubs have been very helpful to me," she added.

She is so quick to praise others and so humble about herself. LeBard has a gift for helping others and a desire to "be the best at it."