Trying to 'send them away with a little hope'

Rachel Rodriguez knows what it's like to feel alone in an impersonal world.

About 20 years ago, she and her three children left everything they knew in the Bronx to move to Bay Shore - a place that might as well have been Mars to her kids.

She decided to begin volunteering in her spare time, and that's when she found Pronto of Long Island, a nonprofit social service agency.

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"We learned that when you live in a community, you give back as best as you can," she said.

Twenty years later, Rodriguez is still volunteering, spending hours each day at Pronto welcoming new clients and listening to their stories of hardship.

Her gift to them is her friendly face and smiles and her own stories about raising children and taking on challenges.

"Some people come here at the bottom of their lives, and we try to send them away with a little hope," she said. "When they sit in that chair, I know some of them have tragedies in their lives. But we try to comfort them and try to be patient and be compassionate, because like I said, there by the grace of God go I."

Nina Fenton, development director of Pronto, said Rodriguez was one of the agency's most devoted volunteers.

"She's very upbeat, very spiritual, and really can take people that are feeling very low and turn them around," Fenton said.

Over the years, Rodriguez estimates she's helped thousands of people, and has seen many able to better their lives through her help as a member of the group.

"It could be one word you say that could change a person's life," she said.