El Mensajero (English)

HENRIETTA -- A willingness to learn and work hard has served as the formula for success for two local men who recently opened their own firm that employs more than two dozen people.

ROCHESTER -- Susan Ladd refused to sit idly by as her school's Hispanic student population continued to grow.

PITTSFORD -- In 2000, filmmaker Nancy Ghertner realized that although she'd lived in Sodus for 30 years, there was an entire segment of her town's population that she knew almost nothing about.

ROCHESTER -- Carmelo Ramos blew a conch shell as the tropical sounds of Puerto Rico's coqui -- the island's native tiny frog -- played in the background.

ROCHESTER -- With beads of sweat rolling down their faces, Thomas Hilire and Adam Johnson swung shovels of dirt over and over -- all for a good cause.

The two high-school students took the lead on digging a 5-foot hole last month in the center of a vacant lot on Clifford Avenue as part of a Puerto Rican Youth Development and Resource Center project to create a memorial garden. The garden will honor city youths who have lost their lives, 15-year-old Thomas explained. And in the area that Thomas and Adam helped dig up on Aug. 16, students later placed totem poles -- with the words "Remember Rochester Youth" painted on them -- that they created to represent those who have died.

HAMLIN -- Five pairs of new sneakers. Five backpacks. Five boxes of crayons.

Not your typical back-to-school list, but that's the reality for the Barreiro family as they prepared their quintuplets for their first day of school at Ginther Elementary School in Brockport.