"We have a very strong parental involvement component where we work with parents and we do quite a bit of training, but we also have these parents volunteer. They come to training once a month, this is called Las Platicas Academy. Las Platicas means, "to talk." Our parents are known as platicadoras. They receive monthly training through our university and then we ask them to turn the training around in their neighborhood, to their families, to their friends, to help us spread the word, to help tell others about GEAR UP, and our parents have done an outstanding job. We don't pay them, it's strictly volunteer hours, but they take such pride in getting that information out to their community because they feel that it's very important."