They Came With Questions. They Left With Purpose (and Paychecks).
Tucked beside the highway in Forest Hills, Fairview Nursing & Rehabilitation Care Center isn’t a place people stumble into. You arrive because you—or someone you love—needs help. It’s a place many Queens families know well. For decades, it’s been where people turn in moments of uncertainty, looking for recovery, stability, or simply a little hope.
On this morning, that same space welcomed a different kind of visitor: uncertain, just as hopeful, but eager to imagine what it might mean to be the source of comfort in the room. Their presence wove into the rhythm of the center. Staff peeked in between rounds, curious about the new faces. These mentees, brought by The City Tutors—CUNY students, GED earners, career changers—came from the same communities as the patients, often standing in the very entryways their own families once had.
For many immigrant and working-class families, a healthcare facility is a fragile threshold: a place where one illness can shake an entire household, where the loss of a single caretaker can ripple across generations. Fairview knows that weight. It lives with it every day. But on this day, it offered something else: a reminder that these spaces can also uplift. That they can serve as bridges—between generations, between strangers, between those who need care and those ready to give it.
The mentees energized the room, and the mentors who volunteered to guide them. Many of those mentors were immigrants themselves, now seeing their own journeys reflected back.
As mentee Kusang Sherpa (LaGuardia Community College) put it, “Hearing the motivation and stories behind their journeys gave me confidence. It reminded me that I can go after what I want: no matter the odds or where I come from.”
For a moment, the room wasn’t defined by vulnerability. It was charged with shared strength. And the staff welcomed the mentees not as observers, but as peers. HR reps, nurses, therapists, and medical record specialists stood beside the equipment they use daily, talking, listening, connecting. One mentor laughed when offered a seat: “We sit all day. We prefer to stand for this.”
The mentees weren’t passive guests. They asked questions. They engaged. And many of them saw themselves, maybe for the first time, in the work unfolding around them.
Three mentees left with jobs. “This was amazing,” said Cargil Filease, Fairview’s head of HR. “I love that I hired three registered nurses.”
But it wasn’t just about those three. It was about everyone else in the room. It was about proving that a place like this isn’t just where care is received—it’s where purpose begins. These students didn’t come to be rescued. They came ready to serve. And what they found was a room full of professionals who’ve spent their lives helping others move forward—who, just for a morning, turned and said: You can be part of this too.
Mentee Reflection: Abigail Perez
Baruch College | First-gen Mexican American pre-med student
I came to the Fairview event because it’s rare to find something designed for students interested in healthcare—especially at a school like mine, where most conversations revolve around PwC, KPMG, finance, and consulting. It gets lonely sometimes cheering on your friends while struggling to find anything that speaks to your own path.
When I saw this opportunity, I signed up immediately. It felt like a space where people might actually understand why I care about this work. What stood out most was hearing directly from nurses, health directors, and med students who were honest about both the joy and emotional weight of the job.
One director shared how hard it is to tell someone their loved one may never walk again: “You can learn how to treat the body, but no one teaches you how to hold someone’s grief.” That really stayed with me.
As someone who sometimes questions if I’m strong enough for this path, hearing that made me realize it’s okay to feel deeply—what matters is turning that compassion into care. This experience grounded me. It gave me clarity on next steps: gaining hands-on experience, finding mentors in women’s health (I’m already in touch with nurses I met here), and building a support system of people who understand what this work takes.
This event reminded me: healthcare isn’t just science. It’s people. It’s heart. It’s resilience.