Kingsbridge resident talks surviving HIV and helping kids in his community

By Jason Cohen

Bronx Times | December 1, 2020

Jonathan Berenguer had faced monumental challenges early on in his childhood. The lifelong Kingsbridge resident was born with HIV and he had lost his parents Orlando Lopez and Elizabeth Berenguer by the time he was 5 years old.

Although the doctors did not think that he would make it into adulthood, Berenguer, 30, survived a grim diagnosis and is now a tutor and director of a nonprofit that counsels children.

Both of Berenguer’s parents were diagnosed with HIV, an autoimmune virus that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United States per year. The Bronx resident was infected with congenital HIV and weighed just 2 pounds and 11 ounces at birth.

“The doctors pretty much told my grandparents I was not going to make it,” he recalled.

He spent the next four months in an incubator, but as his mom recovered in the hospital following his birth, she was visited by an ex-boyfriend who tragically murdered her.

Berenguer was a fighter and eventually made it home to his grandparents Carmen and Rudolph Berenguer. He had a brief relationship with his dad until he was also killed when he was 5.

His grandparents legally adopted him at 6 years old, but at the age of 10, Berenguer faced another crushing loss when his grandfather passed away.

“As a kid you don’t realize it,” he said about the losses he experienced. “You don’t feel hurt.”

Carmen took her grandson to the hospital to receive regular treatment and he was HIV-free by the time he was 6 years old.

“I was a momma’s boy. I wasn’t embarrassed,” he said.

According to Berenguer, having a mom much older than the other kids his age did not bother him. But things changed in middle school as he began to get in fights. Berenguer recalled how he even once punched a friend hoping to impress a girl.

He soon realized that times like these were where he missed having a dad.

“There was a part of me that wanted to make my dad proud,” Berenguer said.

Not long after that, he started to attend church and became more focused.

In high school, Berenguer found his passion for tutoring kids. He would tutor youths in math and in his sophomore year of college at Lehman, he launched a business called By Your Side Tutoring.

“Eventually I realized I want to do something in education to help students,” he said.

During college he also began working as an after school counselor with children and quickly fell in love with it.

Berenguer would share his story with kids, which usually got them to open up to him. While he obtained an Earth Science education degree in 2014, Berenguer got a job as a counselor with Trio, a nationally funded mentoring nonprofit.

Then in 2018, he got his master’s in organizational leadership and became the director of Trio.

Whether it is a weekday after school or on the weekends, Berenguer said that he and his employees do their best to make a difference in kids’ lives.

“It makes me feel like I’m a superhero almost,” he said.

Berenguer told the Bronx Times that in the past five years, he has really reflected on his life and recognized how much of an impact his grandmother had on him.

Carmen instilled in him the values of humility and resilience but also had a great sense of humor. Berenguer said that she had two open heart surgeries and survived COVID-19 and also recalled the time she put a rubber spider on his toothbrush as a prank.

Even with his busy schedule, he tries to watch a novella with her every night on TV.

In addition to his grandmother, Berenguer said that his fifth grade teacher Tony Plata was a big influence on him during his childhood. While in school, he said that Plata taught him the importance of confidence and using one’s voice to speak up.

“At the end of the day I’m no different than anybody else and that’s the message I want my students to take,” he said.

In his spare time, Berenguer also conducts motivational talks for the Department of Education.

For original article posted on BXTimes.com, CLICK HERE.

HOMETOWN HERO: Childhood tragedies inspired [counselor] Jonathan Berenguer’s selfless devotion to Bronx students

By Carla Roman

New York Daily News | October 14, 2019 | 8:00am

A Bronx [counselor] turned a childhood filled with tragedy and loss into a life dedicated to motivating and educating disadvantaged students.

Jonathan Berenguer, 29, a nominee for the Daily News’ Hometown Heroes award, learned early on that sometimes you have to be your own hero. He was only a month old when his mother was allegedly killed by a spurned boyfriend, he says. The exact details surrounding her death are still a mystery.

Five years later, Berenguer’s father was murdered, making him and his older sister Carmen orphans. The siblings were adopted by their maternal grandparents, and for a few years they had a mother and father figure to lean on.

But then his grandfather died when Berenguer was just 10, and the boy suddenly understood he now had to be the man of the house. Assuming the responsibility of caring for his sister and grandmother came naturally, he says — and others around him soon noticed his ability and willingness to be of service to others.

“When I was in eighth grade my math teacher saw potential in me that I didn’t see," Berenguer remembers. “He asked me to help him teach some of my fellow classmates and when I helped that first student and he said to me, ‘Hey Jonathan, I get this. Thanks man’ — that changed my life.”

That feeling of knowing he was able to make a difference in someone’s life “set me on the path to want to do something in education,” Berenguer said. "At that moment, I knew I wanted to be [an educator.]”

As someone who had few resources growing up on the Grand Concourse and E. 196th St., Berenguer began finding ways in which he could be a resource to those around him in similar circumstances.

At 18, he earned a full scholarship to CUNY’s Lehman College in the Bronx, where he planned to graduate as a math teacher — and promptly founded his own tutoring company aimed at helping younger kids in his community.

While pursuing a master’s degree, he worked as a math SAT tutor and counselor to Bronx high schoolers for TRIO, a federal program that provides assistance to low-income students hoping to go to college. Working out of Lehman College, he’s now a TRIO project director and has mentored hundreds of youngsters at several Bronx schools, including Pelham Preparatory Academy in the Bronx.

Leslie Vasquez, a recent Pelham Prep graduate [and valedictorian] who nominated Berenguer as a Hometown Hero, told The News that she was inspired by his passion for wanting to help kids better themselves.

“Jonathan recognizes that education services are not the way they should be for students in the Bronx and he wants to provide these services to us," said Vasquez, who graduated as the school’s valedictorian. “He gave me the advice I needed when I had no one to give it to me ... and he was able to help friends of mine that were headed onto really bad paths and now they’re going to college.”

Berenguer said he attributes his early life experiences to the way he communes with students.

“I know what it is to feel abandoned, and so I strive to make all students feel welcomed and accepted," he told The News. "I know what it is to grow up with not many resources, so I teach students how to become successful so that they can live comfortably. I know what it is to be hurting and trying so hard to hide it, so I try to make students feel special and cared for when I talk to them and provide them with opportunities and programs.”

While Berenguer’s dedication to his Bronx students makes him a deserving Hometown Heroes nominee, he says they’re the ones who are real heroes by providing him with inspiration and motivation.

“When I see Bronx kids I can see the poverty and I can see the struggle,” Berenguer said. "But at the same time you see the potential, the creativity, the eagerness to succeed (and) to be somebody — and that right there is the most beautiful thing for me.”

For original article posted on NYDailyNews.com, CLICK HERE.