Strangers came together to help a Rio Grande Valley man pay for trucking school.
Roberto Yzaguirre just finished his first week at a CDL school. He’s tried going for several years, but it all became a reality last week.
A Facebook post showing him in Weslaco went viral and changed his life.
“I really wasn’t expecting that, it was really like overwhelming at first, but I got it as a sign from God, like ‘hey, calm down I got your back’,” Yzaguirre said.
The picture showed him outside a convenience store next to his water cooler with a sign asking for donations to attend CDL school.
Seeing himself online was a spotlight he wasn’t expecting.
“At first I was kind of shy, I was kind of, I guess like nervous, because I didn’t know how the community would see it,” Yzaguirre said. “All of the positivity, positive comments, you know what I mean? All it did was to encourage me to keep going, never give up.”
The Facebook post got close to 3,000 reactions and almost 500 comments, including some from CDL schools to help him with a scholarship.
“It just made me feel like all of my hard work, that it was seen, that it is being appreciated. So I really appreciate that,” Yzaguirre said.
He ended up choosing RGV CDL Services LLC, where he will get training both in a classroom and behind the wheel for free.
“Some people may qualify for assistance, there’s different programs out there that they may qualify for. Unfortunately not everyone does, so what we decided to cut the red tape and say, we’re going to go and provide the scholarship here and that’s what we did,” RGV CDL Services LLC owner Aldo Ortiz said.
Ortiz said Yzaguirre is the first person to obtain this full scholarship, and they already plan to continue with this type of help in the future.
“He’s going to be busy for the next couple of weeks, but we believe in him, we think he’s going to do an amazing job, and we just want to see him succeed,” Ortiz said.
Yzaguirre will be studying for five weeks to be able to obtain his commercial driver’s license certification and his forklift driver certification.
“It’s really important that I pass those exams, so I’m really going to be studying hard,” Yzaguirre said.
Yzaguirre says the donations he got with that post ended up being $3,200. He used that to buy a used car that now is unusable.
Still, he says he’s very grateful for all the community support.
Watch the video above for the full story.
Recent Comments