Aurora Sanchez was confident she was doing the right thing, following her husband to the United States from El Salvador to start a new life and a family. She hadn’t quite known what to expect, and finding her way was filled with unknowns and isolation.

Sanchez, speaking through a translator, said it was “very difficult” to leave her family and adjust to a different country with a different language, culture, and way of life. She felt lonely, stressed, and depressed despite her happiness with the birth of her daughter.

That’s when she found Lincoln Families, a 140-year-old Oakland-based organization that works with an assortment of agencies to connect families and children struggling with poverty and trauma with important life-changing programs and resources.

The roots of the organization began in 1883 when its founder, Rebecca McWade, found a young child on her doorstep and incorporated the first racially integrated orphanage in Northern California, the Little Workers Home. When the original home in Oakland caught fire, the children were moved to two new homes on Lincoln Avenue, inspiring a new name, Lincoln Families.

Caregivers and supporters began to realize that providing children with shelter, clothing and food while they awaited new families was not enough. Children in the orphanage and other institutions were suffering from emotional trauma. Social workers were hired and Lincoln was reorganized as a foster care agency.

“Mental health and wellness is still the issue of our time,” says Kirsten Melton, Lincoln Families’ chief development and marketing officer. “It’s so important to provide help and support to those who need it.”

Two classes offered by the nonprofit at West Oakland’s Family Resource Center appealed to Sanchez — English as a Second Language and Zero to Five, which provides early guidance and development of children through age 5.

She’s now volunteering at the resource center. And, she said, she’s found what she had been looking for when she immigrated: “A new world of hope.”