Rene Guadarrama Sanchez
Affectionately known as “Professor René” by the many Malinalcans who remember him from secondary school, where for 25 years he served generations of students as a kind and dedicated teacher of carpentry. The first time he helped the Corner Institute was when he offered the school carpentry shop for our first summer workshop for migrants’ children. Since his retirement, Professor René has become an increasingly active participant, constructing the ingeniously designed folding picture frames that serve as the base for the beautiful hand-carved desk frames that are our woodcarvers’ latest creation.

Alma Nicodemus Higueldo
Though Alma stopped her formal education before finishing high school in order to help support her family, she has developed impressive organizational skills in the course of various jobs, including the general store and public long distance service where she started working ten years ago, and has managed since 2004. She has coordinated the local parish youth group for the past five years. Thanks to Alma's hard work and organizational skills a group visiting from Ohio was able to successfully coordinate with the Corner Institute to sponsor the eye surgery that restored the vision of a blind man living on a nearby mountainside.

Camelia Ramos Zamora
Camelia wanted to find a way to help her father, who in his sixties began finding it difficult to get the construction jobs he'd worked in all his life. During a lengthening period of unemployment, her father mentioned that as a young man in the nearby town of Tenancingo, which is famous for its hand-woven shawls, he'd worked as a weaver in the disappearing traditional waist-loom technique. Camelia got him the parts he needed to make a loom and set out to sell the beautiful shawls he began to produce, which have become famous in our region. Camelia is now working with the Corner Institute on developing this cloth into fine handbags for export.