How one volunteer’s dedication fuels the Hazleton Integration Project.
Project Bridging the gap: How one volunteer’s dedication fuels the Hazleton Integration
Project
Carmen Kahiu, a bilingual volunteer at the HIP Center on Friday, July 17, 2026.(John Haeger / Staff Photographer)
By Martin Repetto | mrepetto@standardspeaker.com
PUBLISHED: July 24, 2026 at 3:32 PM EDT | UPDATED: July 26, 2026 at 9:45 AM EDT
Editor’s Note: The Standard-Speaker is profiling leaders in the Hispanic community in our series Voices of Hazleton: Bridging cultures, building community. Today, we profile Carmen Kahiu, a bilingual volunteer at the Hazleton Integration Project and the vice-president of its board.
The Hazleton Integration Project is a hub that draws many area residents, such as volunteers looking to help out and those in need of the help provided. Many speak English; many more speak Spanish, but they can all rely on the HIP’s bilingual staff to bridge the gap. This is the role that volunteers like Carmen Kahiu, a 66-year-old retiree, step into.
“I’ve been volunteering at the HIP Center for about three years now, helping out in a lot of different ways such as filling forms in the office or serving food during dinner services,” recalled Kahiu from inside the HIP computer lab while students studied inside it.
“I used to teach ESL courses, but I really viewed my work as teaching kids life skills.
Hazleton has a very high demand for bilingual speakers, given that almost two-thirds mostly speak Spanish, but the high school students I taught often didn’t understand the commitment a job requires. Some would go into an interview and mention that they planned to go on a month-long trip to the Dominican Republic a month after they started; so I taught them how to manage their requests and get the jobs they wanted.
“I think that’s a pretty good example of how any role here forces you to go above and beyond.”
Kahiu was born and raised in New York, where she grew up in a bilingual household as the child of Ecuadorian and African American parents. She moved to New Jersey when she was 12, but later left to study healthcare at then Misericordia College in Dallas.
Carmen Kahiu, a volunteer translator at the HIP Center on Friday, July 17, 2026.(John Haeger / Staff Photographer)
When she graduated, though, Kahiu realized she was in no hurry to leave.
“I knew that I loved northern Pennsylvania, and I wanted to stay there. The location was very attractive to me, given that it was just three hours away from New York; I could still drive home on a whim, while remaining independent,” she said.
Kahiu spent most of her time in NEPA working at Sallie Mae Navient as a student loan
servicer, where she learned to care for the region’s residents.
“While I was working there, I took steps to immerse myself in the community. In
particular, I joined a year-long community leadership program which taught people in
business how to become community leaders,” she said. “As part of that program, I
learned about justice, education, every aspect of community that you could think of. The
class I was with met with judges, school superintendents, people who knew about the
real issues the community was facing.
“It was through that program that I first learned about Geisinger, where I’d go to work,
and HIP.”
While at Geisinger in 2020, Kahiu helped start an employee resource group named
Salud to improve workplace inclusivity and community development among Latino
employees.
“When we started exploring how to expand that program, we quickly identified the
Integration Project as the best option and partnered with them. I was the point person
for that partnership, which was how I started volunteering with the HIP.”
Kahiu says that she hit the ground running as a volunteer, doing her best to help out at
the HIP however she can.
The HIP provides many services to many residents, from acting as a daycare provider
to a food distributor. A first-time visitor to the project shouldn’t be surprised to find
groups of children and volunteers moving through the hallway to the background sound
of conversations that shift between English and Spanish.
A fifth of Hazleton Area School District students are classified as English Language
Learners, while the US Census Bureau’s data shows that 57% of Hazleton residents
speak a language other than English at home.
Apart from teaching classes, Kahiu also provides general service as a translator in the
office for English speakers and Spanish speakers, and for the agricultural truck that
regularly delivers food for the residents of Hazleton.
“When the AG truck comes in, they require recipients to fill out a form to receive the
food, which I help them to fill out as accurately as possible,” she said. :Doing that helps
us keep the food support coming, and even increase what we can give people, by
generating a record that we are fulfilling a need for help in Hazleton.”
Less than a year ago, Kahiu became the vice president of the HIP after Elaine and Bob
Curry retired from their positions, in recognition of her commitment to the project, but
she still views herself as a humble volunteer.
“As a board member, Carmen really does help out with everything here,” explained
Guadalupe Diaz, the education coordinator at the HIP Center. “Everyone has worked with her, and she speaks to everyone at the Center.”
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“Because of my own struggles, growing up speaking Spanish and going to a mostly English school, I view myself as a champion of the underdog,” said Kahiu. When I was a kid in New York, I volunteered at the Children’s Aid Society, and now, decades later, I’m still.