By Janice Lewis

Carol Marion Fendez is on a mission. As a community partnership specialist for the Bureau of the Census, she travels throughout the Northeast, training local leaders how to ensure their constituencies are accurately counted for the next year.

She also coordinates events and courses for the Children's Creative Writing Campaign, a national effort to improve children’s writing skills.

In both jobs, she works to improve the political power and educational attainment of Hispanics. In her spare time, Fendez attends classes at Hunter College and is an active member of the campus Welfare Rights Initiative, where she received training to be an advocate for the rights of low-income women.

Poverty has served as a powerful motivation, as well as a barrier, in the life of the 50-year-old former welfare recipient. Her work has been so successful that she is one of the recipients of the Hispanic woman of the year award from El Diario, New York's largest circulation Spanish language newspaper. However, money issues still cast a shadow over her success. She has completed all the requirements for a degree save one: paying a student debt.

For the census bureau, Fendez concentrates on helping community leaders ensure that the more hard-to-reach Hispanics-- the poor and the recent immigrants--are counted in the upcoming enumeration of U.S. residents. Many Latinos are unaware of the rules of confidentiality that protect their rights, she says.

``It is important that they fill out the questionnaires so that Latinos get the recognition that they deserve," she says. Her work requires extensive travel throughout the region. As a community liaison, she reaches out to organizations such as El Diario and the New York Yankees for grants to aid in her children’s program.

She has realized that many immigrant children are really smart in Spanish, but do not read or write English very well and are often lumped with special education children. She encourages them to write stories and poems in their language, which she then helps translate.

"Children get a boost in their academic confidence as well," Fendez points out. She hopes to provide positive role models for the children and to produce a whole anthology of the work of Spanish-speaking children.

At Hunter, Fendez takes courses, including Women's Studies classes. She keeps up with the classes even though she has more than the number of credits needed to graduate with a bachelor's degree. Her problem is that she still owes tuition in the amount of $2,400 and student loans of $10,000 for more than 10 years. Even though she is gainfully employed she still finds it difficult to pay off her debts.

She has tried to work out a settlement but she was told that she would be expected to pay a lump sum of at least $7,800. She complains that the interest on these loans is so high that in a recent payment of $250, as much as $76 went to interest alone.

Fendez spent the early part of her career as an accountant for Robert Half & Assoc. and the Jewish Home for the Aged. Her real dream, however, was always to be a nurse but her father, a native of Peru, tried to discourage her for fear that she might become infected with a contagious disease working at a hospital. She started nursing school when she was 40, sometimes attending classes that began at 6:45 a.m. Attending Bronx Community College, she received an associate’s degree in Community Health Education with a 3.85 grade point average

Fendez was a single mother by that time. She had married her sweetheart fresh out of high school and the union produced a son, Alex. Her husband rejected the responsibility of being a father and returned to his mother's house, where he still lives. She says they remain friends, however.

Perhaps recalling his affection for her, a serene cherub-like smile touches her lips and she unconsciously pulls her tailored tan suit jacket closer, He never got involved with their son's life, she says, but concedes that Fendez did a good job in raising him. Father and son are not as close as they might have been, she adds, explaining that it was better that she and her husband kept their relationship as it is because he has a drinking problem.

While in nursing school she started having other personal problems such as taking care of her mother, who became ill. Fendez also became ill and could not finish her studies. As her mother was dying in 1994, her funds were so low that she sought public assistance.

About a week after the death, Fendez and her son Alex went to Ithaca, N. Y., where her mother had lived for several years after her brother's fatal car accident. They had about a quarter of a century of documents and belongings to work through. After three days of packing and cleaning they returned to the Bronx and, as she was moving one of the last cartons into her home, she fell and broke her leg.

"It was God's way of telling me to slow down and get some rest," she says.

She stayed on welfare for seven months and then returned to work. Two years later, she was working at the Lincoln Hospital as a community liaison. She discovered that she had to undergo surgery for the leg. She took a leave of absence from the job and during that time her job was terminated without her knowledge. The city claimed that they mailed a notice but it turned out that it was sent to the wrong person at the wrong address. She had to go on unemployment while her union sued the city. The case is still unresolved.

Fendez's life turned a corner when she found the job with the Census bureau. She revels in her current success and her relationship with her grown son, Alex, now 28. He is employed at Bell Atlantic as a field technician. Fendez says that their relationship is very special. "We can talk about anything," she says.

In spite of her busy schedule, Fendez makes time to visit with her sister and go to the theater and dinner or just relax with her beloved Blaze, a pitbull and German Shepherd mix.

"She's beautiful," she says of the dog. "Her color is beige with little black peaks and she eats anything even lettuce! She's very lovable too," Fendez adds fondly, tossing her full, brown, curly hair shoulder-length while a warm glow creeps into her brown eyes.