{"id":37478,"date":"2025-04-23T14:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T18:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=37478"},"modified":"2025-05-02T14:45:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T18:45:57","slug":"magazine-a-wealth-of-well-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/magazine-a-wealth-of-well-being\/","title":{"rendered":"A Wealth of Well-Being"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jose Morales-Martinez \u201918 start<\/strong>s <\/strong>the day with two cups of coffee<\/strong> and spends as little time as possible in his office at Berea High School.<\/p>\n

As site coordinator for Communities in Schools, he\u2019s at the door when students are streaming in. \u201cHow was the weekend?\u201d he asks. \u201cHow was your birthday? How was your quincea\u00f1era? How are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jose Morales-Martinez \u201918, talks with Stacey Reyes, a senior at Berea High School, about her college application process at the school on Monday, Dec 9, 2024. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University<\/p><\/div>\n

When he needs to meet with students, he tries to catch them between classes, walking alongside while offering both encouragement and course corrections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m speaking highly about you, but the teacher sees otherwise,\u201d he might tell someone.<\/p>\n

After school, he\u2019s busy coaching girls\u2019 varsity soccer \u2013 and brainstorming ways all of the high school\u2019s athletes could mentor younger students at the elementary and middle schools that feed into Berea High.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt fills my cup when I can see other people advocating for themselves, learning the skills and then sharing them with other people,\u201d Morales-Martinez says. \u201cI\u2019ve been gifted a pretty wonderful life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not asking something of these students that he didn\u2019t do himself.<\/p>\n

Morales-Martinez was born in Mexico City and was 4 years old when his family crossed the desert into the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the coyote telling us to be careful, be quiet,\u201d he says. He also remembers subsequent years living in fear.<\/p>\n

Two programs were pivotal for him: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a federal program that gave Morales-Martinez temporary legal status; and Bridges to a Brighter Future, a Furman program that helps high school students with both significant promise and significant obstacles make their way to and through college.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I carry that like a badge of honor,\u201d he says. \u201cIt made me become brave, strong-minded. It made me believe that I can be someone other people can look up to.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mom comes up frequently in conversation. She did what she could to improve life for her family \u2013 and she also told her children to get an education, so they\u2019d be able to do more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got (to Furman), my whole mindset was that I wanted to help people out,\u201d Morales-Martinez says.<\/p>\n

His mom suggested he do that by being a doctor. But he was uninspired by his first biology class.<\/p>\n

His personal workouts in the gym led him to the health sciences program. He took a May X course to learn about the work of a medical paralegal and broadened his understanding of advocacy. He took classes in psychology and sociology, poverty studies and public health.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jose Morales-Martinez \u201918, high fives Leslie Peralta, a junior at Berea High School, while walking through the hallways of the school on Monday, December 9, 2024. Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cHow does our society develop us?\u201d he wanted to know. \u201cEverything can affect somebody\u2019s well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Caterisano, a professor of health sciences, taught Morales-Martinez and coached him in powerlifting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat impressed me about Jose was he was very altruistic,\u201d Caterisano says. \u201cHe had a really great sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, through Communities in Schools, Morales-Martinez operates at the intersection of social work and advocacy. His mission is the well-being of students, whether that means getting to the bottom of behavioral issues or chronic absences or academic struggles.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that I do, I think about the things that I studied, the things that my professors taught me at Furman,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s encouraging the next generation to follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour path for college is not going to be easy \u2026 but\u00a0 also, fight for what you want,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jose Morales-Martinez \u201918 gives back to a community that has shown him so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":37614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3343,1963,3342],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-spring-2025","category-furman-magazine","category-spring-2025"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37478"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37938,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478\/revisions\/37938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}