The Story Behind Our Name

Soy La Esperanza is a play on words deriving from the actual phonetic sounding of our founder's mother’s name, Zoila Esperanza, which directly translates to “I am hope.” In a place like the South Bronx, where our founder grew up, it is sometimes easy to lose hope. He has been taught from an early age that hope is the last thing you lose in any situation, and it is the reason why he has lived a fearless life and why he has passed on this same sense of hope to the thousands of students whose lives he has touched. Esperanza is also symbolic in that it is the Spanish name for a Katydid, a form of long-horned grasshopper that is supposed to bring good fortune when it visits someone's home. For this reason, the Esperanza is a key visual representation of our company and our motto: Leaping to a hopeful future.