Until five years ago, the prospects of the Carrillo brothers going to college were dim.

Alfredo, Alex and Jesse were born in a poor neighborhood of South St. Louis, and their Catholic school was in danger of closing because of declining enrollment.

Like most of their classmates at St. Cecilia's, the Carrillos are Hispanic, and it was common for their friends to begin working right after eighth grade to help support their families.

But Lorenzo and Maria Carrillo had different plans for their boys. The Mexican immigrants own a small western wear shop in the city, and they dreamed of their sons getting college diplomas.

Now, thanks to an infusion of support from a non-profit program called ACCESS Academies, the Carrillo brothers are well on their way.

Alfredo is a freshman at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Alex will be graduating from St. John Vianney High School in Kirkwood next week and has received an academic scholarship to Syracuse University. Jesse is a junior at Vianney, and he'll be applying to colleges soon, with the hopes of attending a school in California.

The young men have solid ideas about what they'll do after college too. Alfredo and Jesse want to run an international business that allows them to use their fluency in Spanish. Alex plans to become a civil engineer.

In the fall of 2005, St. Cecilia's and two other schools in St. Louis began ACCESS (Academies Creating Challenging Education for St. Louis Students) with the mission of helping middle schoolers become academically successful so they could break free of poverty. Today the program has expanded to include one more school.

Students in ACCESS put in longer school days, participate in enrichment programs and go to school during the summer. The program is funded largely by businesses and civic groups.

The founders of the program recognized that the most dangerous thing for these kids was to be on the streets in the afternoons; that's when they got in trouble, said Steve Kelly, program director at St. Cecilia's.

The program gives students practical skills too, like requiring them to plot a route that uses a bus and Metro Link to get to a St. Louis landmark, then taking it and bringing back a memento to prove they were there. The result is that the participants aren't intimidated if they have to take public transportation to get to high school.

In addition, the long hours together result in students thinking of themselves as family, Kelly said, and students come back and volunteer to help their old school at fish fries or on clean-up days.

"Most kids quit going back to visit their grade school after their sophomore year, but I'm still coming up here all the time to see my teachers," Alfredo said.

The Carrillo brothers thrived under ACCESS, and when they got accepted into St. John the Baptist High School near their home, the program helped them apply for the financial aid they needed to afford the $4,000 tuition. Kelly continued meeting with the boys twice a quarter to make sure they were keeping up with their coursework, and when needed, offered them tutors.

When St. John closed in 2008, the boys faced the challenge of finding a new school — one that would be more expensive and require them to get transportation.

ACCESS offered to negotiate financial assistance at a new school, and Kelly counseled the brothers about where they might finish their education.

He suggested they visit Vianney, and while the brothers liked it, they worried they might be the only Latinos in a predominantly white school.

"I told them that they were the kind of guys who can blaze a trail," Kelly said. "They're very charismatic, very fun to be around, and I knew they'd make friends."

Kelly talked to Vianney about being more sensitive to their cultural differences, and the school offered to add Spanish-language open house tours as well as arrange to hold parent-teacher meetings with Spanish-speaking families at St. Cecilia's, where translators would be present.

This year, 11 former St. Cecilia students are enrolled at Vianney, and Alex says he goes out of his way to make the new students feel welcome and offer his support.

"I wanted to set an example for all of the kids coming in and try to be the influence, to impress on them that success in academics is the key to their future," he said.