"It's just been very difficult. I wanted to learn English but I had four young children and no husband," she says. "When I finally did have time to go to school at night, I had no patience. I just survive with the little I have."

A Second Family

In a way, MAPS has saved her, Lopes says.

She began volunteering 28 years ago, at a point in her life when she says she felt somewhat lost.

"I was no longer married, and I had so much time," Lopes remembers. "And the program really needed somebody."

Her many roles with MAPS have all focused on trying to maintain Portuguese culture.

For years, she headed a theatre group that performed plays written by Portuguese writers at the Saint Anthony's Church. She also ran a program to help children of Portuguese descent learn to read and write Portuguese. She also still spends time fundraising

Now she works at the Senior Center--a program whose goal is to help ease the isolation that many first-generation Portuguese immigrants feel once their children have grown up and no longer need their constant attention.