LEA & NATALIE

Raising children today requires money. 

For some parents that means working long, thankless hours or taking on demanding trades jobs where a parent has to leave home for weeks on end. 

Sometimes, it requires both.

Gretel Pineda Hinojosa and her oldest daughter Lea came to Canada from Cuba when Lea was only one year old. Gretel’s husband, himself originally from Chile, had brought them over. Ten years later, Gretel and her husband are putting in long, demanding shifts at their respective jobs in order to put food on the table for Lea and her younger sister Natalie, now in sixth and fifth grade, respectively, at John A. McDougall Elementary School. 

While her husband, an electrician, works in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut for weeks at a time, Gretel studies nursing at the University of Alberta and works as a hospital porter. Until recently she had also worked a second job as a health care aide. 

Needless to say, opportunities for the Maldonado-Pinedas to be together are relatively few and far between. Lea and Natalie often come home from school to a house with no parents, as both Gretel and her husband are out working.

“Sometimes we do not see much of the kids at all,” Gretel says. “We’re very busy and not always home.” 

After-school care became a priority for the Maldonado-Pinedas. 

The girls are artistic and fond of sports (Natalie in particular has an affinity for soccer and football), but without much in the way of an outlet, meaning that there wasn’t much for them to do but come home to an empty house and study until it was time to go to bed. 

Fortunately, Lea and Natalie learned about Free Play for Kids through their school. 

“The girls were upset that they missed the deadline for registration,” Gretel says, “but they were able to fit them in.”

Despite the initial disappointment of believing that they had missed out, the girls were entered into the program, and they haven’t looked back since. 

The fact that this was a free option for after-school care didn’t hurt either, as there’s only so much that a family bringing home multiple paychecks can weather when they would also be required to pay into any such activities for two very active girls. 

Free Play allowed the Maldonado-Pinedas to have their daughters pursue these athletic and creative outlets with the added relief of being able to use their hard-earned money to provide for the family in different ways.

“I like that it provides valuable after-school care for the girls,” Gretel says. “It keeps them healthy, active, and happy.”

With the Maldonado-Pinedas working as much as they do and with Gretel back in classes, parents and kids alike are eager to keep participating in Free Play.

“It provides a valuable service for us and for so many other families,” Gretel says, “and we appreciate it very much!”