Wielding decades of professional experience in academia and across numerous ESOL programs, the Rev. Sheila Acevedo Limontas has been active as the co-founder and president of Angela’s GEMMS (Global Educational and Multilingual/Multicultural Services), Inc. since 2016. The nonprofit organization, which she started with her husband, provides humanitarian services to underprivileged women, children, elders, and families in Haiti and Southeast Florida who have been displaced due to natural disasters, socio-economic statuses, and other disruptive events. In this capacity, she works on a wide variety of projects, including women’s small business start-up funding, seminars on health care, domestic violence, caregiving, nutrition, and cooking, and providing stipends for uniforms, books, and tuition for students’ education. Rev. Acevedo Limontas’ nonprofit is named in honor of her eldest daughter, Angela Acevedo Martin, an educator herself who passed away in 2020 after battling multiple sclerosis.

In addition, she serves as the vice president of the South Florida Haiti Project and has been an education and community linkages adviser for the Haitian American Solidarity Center in Florida and an educational adviser for Operation Restoration Christian School in Jamaica, among several other community initiatives. An accomplished minister as well, she helps victims of human trafficking and domestic violence as well as the homeless population.

Growing up, Rev. Acevedo Limontas moved often. Her father was a military captain and pilot who flew 50 missions during World War II, and her mother worked as a professional musician who performed with the USO during the war. After her father died as a result of war injuries, she and her siblings were entitled to receive War Orphans Benefits from the GI Bill, which is how she ultimately went to college. She was in and out of children’s homes and orphanages throughout her youth, but her grandparents were inspiring figures to her and continually encouraged her to study and help others. She always had an aspiration to teach and would even educate other kids in the children’s home she lived in. Rev. Limontas eventually earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Language Education, with a minor in Spanish, as well as a Master of Education in English Education and ESOL from the University of Central Florida before completing all PhD coursework for multilingual multicultural and internal education at Florida State University.

Guided by her faith and the perseverance she gained in her early life, Rev. Acevedo Limontas launched her career in 1974 as a teacher within Orange County Public Schools, where she remained for 10 years before advancing to a supervisor role there for five years. Additionally, she found success as a supervisor at Florida International University and an instructor at Florida State University; she then served as manager of the School District of Palm Beach County from 1990 to 2007. Under her leadership, there was a major development and implementation of full service schools throughout the district, laying the groundwork for humanitarian health and social services and linkages, partnerships, increased adult education, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and other efforts with health care providers, human service agencies and organizations districtwide to expand access for at-risk youth and their families. In the midst of this position, she excelled as an adjunct professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University and Nova Southeastern University. Prior to establishing Angela’s GEMMS, she lent her expertise as an ESOL Specialist and a Spanish teacher in the Palm Beach County School District, and as an educational consultant for Inter-visual Technology, Inc.

Between 1981 and 2011, Rev. Acevedo Limontas wrote and managed $15 million worth of competitive educational grants and has accrued awards from the Florida Adult Education Association, the Diocese of Southeast Florida, and the U.S. Department of Education. The latter was in recognition of the Jobsite English Project, in which she and her team shadowed workers and wrote a curriculum for them to learn English. They ended up partnering with various companies, including boat manufacturers, AT&T, and Walt Disney Resort in Germany, France, and China. It helped new immigrants learn the language of their work and communicate in small talk and emergencies

Outside of her primary endeavors, Rev. Acevedo Limontas has been an extremely active voice on the editorial boards for WGBH Boston’s Connect With English Television and Book Series for Adult Learners of English as Another Language. She has also been involved with the Committee for Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation in the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida and is a proud life member of the NAACP. Looking toward the future, she said, “I expect to be serving God’s people by walking in faith and resilience and spreading God’s love in action…one small act of kindness at a time.”