Abstract  Hidalgo County, Texas, is one of the poorest in the country. The population in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is 85% Mexican-American. Underprepared for college and juggling full time jobs, their own children, and sometimes dysfunctional extended families, students often do not expect to succeed. I recently taught a Creative Writing course which applied writing projects to social problems. This paper looks at the work of the course, the pedagogy applied, student and teacher reflections, and lessons learned through the lens of class, oppression, and power and argues that these elements ought always be a component of service learning education.