When Utica resident Iriele Chery thinks about her goal of graduating from the Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program this June, her mind first goes to her parents, who moved from Haiti to the United States in 1994.
She thinks about her mother, Irene Chery, dying in her arms from an aneurysm and heart attack in 2012 and her failed attempts at CPR. She thinks about her father, Fritz Chery, who always encouraged her to work in healthcare but won’t get to see her accomplish the goal because he died unexpectedly in 2023.
Iriele Chery, 27, who wears a necklace with a picture of her parents on it, works two jobs while taking the Herkimer BOCES program full-time because she wants to become a licensed practical nurse. While reflecting on her mother’s death, she said her goal is to help deliver babies as a nurse.
“There’s a saying I always tell myself: I watched a life get taken in my arms, in the palm of my hands, and I want to help bring life into the world with the palm of my hands,” Chery said. “So healthcare basically became the center of my universe since then. I always say if I had known the information I know now, I’d probably have parents still.”
Turning the tragedies into something positive serves as Chery’s primary motivation.
“That’s what keeps me going,” she said.
Chery joined the Herkimer-BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program’s full-time class in July 2024 and is scheduled to graduate in June 2025. Because of the high demand locally and beyond for LPNs, the program has a 100% job placement rate for graduates, so Chery knows she could be only a few more months of hard work away from becoming an LPN.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
For information about the Herkimer BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program, the program’s Open House on March 18 or how to apply for the next LPN classes, visit www.herkimer-boces.org/lpn.
‘Center of my world’
Chery was just a freshman in high school when her mother died from an aneurysm and heart attack with Chery there by her side.
“I didn’t really know much what to do. She ended up passing away in my arms,” Chery said. “I tried to do CPR, but again, I didn’t know much what to do. So immediately healthcare became the center of my world. Especially delivering babies.”
Chery has already partially reached her goal by becoming a doula and assisting with births, but she wants to help deliver babies as a nurse. She plans to work as an LPN for the near future and then at some point further her education to become a registered nurse.
She sees delivering babies as a way to help others and give back to the world after everything she has gone through with her parents’ deaths.
‘Very big on education’
When Fritz and Irene Chery first moved from Haiti to the United States, they stayed with Irene’s brother in Las Vegas who came a year prior. Shortly after, in 1994, they moved to Utica.
Iriele Chery traces the roots of her healthcare career back to both her own interest in nursing and to the Haitian culture she and her siblings grew up in through her parents.
“My dad, he’s very big on education, he was always big on that,” Chery said. “Especially in a Haitian culture household – you always want to have one doctor or nurse, one engineer, one business person. And then to me, I always since I was younger was always interested in nursing. But he always said, ‘Maybe you could be a doctor.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know about doctor. You know, I want to just deliver babies.’ But he always influenced me in every second.”
Chery previously joined the Herkimer BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program a few years ago, but she got stomach cancer, and due to complications from that and vaccine requirements, she wasn’t able to complete the program. She tried again in 2023, but when her father died in November 2023, she couldn’t do it.
She wishes she could have completed the program while her father was alive to see her live out his dream for her.
“I just needed him to hang on one more year,” she said. “But God had other plans.”
‘After June’
Chery said she recommends to other local adults who might be interested in joining the Herkimer BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program to go for it.
“Honestly, I would tell them just come because my thing is I didn’t think I was going to do the LPN program either,” Chery said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t have parents. But I just knew: Come to the program. Just keep going. It’s 11 months. You just have to basically dedicate one year to yourself, to bettering yourself, to get through the program, and I promise it will be smooth sailing from there.”
The end result of becoming an LPN will improve your life, Chery said.
“Like for me, for instance, I was working two jobs and everything trying to make ends meet, and I know when I’m done, it will be worth it,” Chery said. “And on top of that too, you have amazing teachers you can go to. They probably watched me run into their office and cry so many times, and they’re always there to help me out. Honestly, between the teachers and the program, that’s what keeps me going. It’s honestly the teachers.”
Chery has continued to work two jobs while taking the program full-time. Both jobs were full-time originally, but she had to drop one to per diem to make time for the LPN program.
“I keep telling myself I knew what I signed up for,” Chery said. “I knew it was going to be hard. I knew I didn’t have support. I knew I didn’t have anyone. And so one job pays the bills, and I go to school with the other, and I know after June I’ll be OK. I keep telling myself I’m going to be OK after June.”
Chery said her father long ago saw the opportunities that are now right in front of her.
“He used to always say, ‘You go to nursing school. Once you’re done, there will be a whole bunch of doors opening and waiting for you,’” she said. “I even have a video before he passed where he says, ‘Make sure you always focus on school.’ He was like, ‘If you don’t have anything, you always have your education. No one can take that from you.’”
Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program full-time student Iriele Chery takes her inspiration for her career in healthcare from her parents, Fritz and Irene Chery, and keeps a photo of them in a necklace she wears here while standing the Herkimer BOCES nursing simulation lab.
Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego BOCES Adult Practical Nursing Program full-time student Iriele Chery practices with mannequin in the program’s simulation lab.