Advocate for Optimism | Abogando por el Optimismo

Hi Friends,

Summer has come to an end and we are adjusting to the new routine of fall. Fall is my favorite season because it’s the best time for walking and being outside in Sonoma County. 

Walking has always been my preferred method for meditation, exercise and conversation. I find that my kids open up to me the most when we are walking side by side (side-by-side communication is proven to be the most comfortable for preteens and teens). Additionally, walking’s bilateral movement is beneficial for your brain, as energy is passed back and forth between the hemispheres reducing depression and anxiety. What I love most about walking, though, is how I feel when I am done. I feel relaxed and optimistic.

Optimism is stronger than ever here at the Healthcare Foundation as we begin strategic planning for our next three years. Our process brings together conversations with subject matter experts along with the lived experience and historical knowledge of our incredible community to set a strong course for the organization that can take the Healthcare Foundation’s mission to the next level.

The voices in this month’s newsletter are indicative of the optimism we feel, and I know you’ll understand why when you hear from each of them: 

Elioenai Quinones, one of our three new Mental Health Talent Pipeline scholarship awardees, who began her graduate studies at USF Santa Rosa this fall in preparation for a career here in north county as a bilingual and bicultural Marriage & Family Therapist (MFT).

Jade Weymouth, the tenacious and huge-hearted executive director of La Familia Sana, whose commitment and vision we are so proud to recognize with this year’s Spirit of Wetzel Award.

And Kim Harris, an MFT herself and the dedicated Wellness Coordinator at Healdsburg High School’s remarkable new student Wellness Center.

Optimism creates possibility — but nothing is truly possible without you. Let’s take a walk together in this beautiful fall weather, have a conversation, and see where our optimism takes us. I hope to hear from you!

Take Care,

Amy Ramirez
Executive Director

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Mental Health Talent Pipeline Spotlight: Meet Elioenai “Eli” Quinones

Elioenai Quinones was born in North Carolina and moved with her family to Calistogoa, California, when she was five. A couple of years later they were in Santa Rosa, where the family finally put down roots. Elioenai, who goes by Eli, says her experience of growing up in northern Sonoma County left her with a strong community ethic.

“My dad was a pastor at the time, so we would go to church almost every day and my extracurriculars would be volunteer work, whether it was at the food bank or Bayer Farm community garden,” she recalls. “The people I surrounded myself with were always trying to help in some way, whether it was packing bags of food or digging weeds out of the community beds. That shaped the way I interacted with people. I knew the smallest interaction could allow me to better know someone. I was gratified by doing volunteer work.”

After high school, Eli went to Kalamazoo College in Michigan, returning with her bachelor’s degree in the middle of the pandemic. Working initially in several education and service sector settings, she eventually applied to USF Santa Rosa’s graduate program in counseling psychology. In August, with support from the Healthcare Foundation’s Mental Health Talent Pipeline scholarship program, Eli began her first year in the MFT master’s program.

Eli recently shared some reflections on the path that has brought her to a career as a bilingual, bicultural Marriage and Family Therapist serving north county. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Full Article (5 min read)

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$100,000 Raised!

Thank you to the following generous donors to our 2024 Mental Health Talent Pipeline campaign who helped us meet the $50,000 match put forward by Mark Freed and Suzanne and Gene Valla in celebration of the program’s fifth year!

Bank of Marin
Rebeccah Baumgardner
David and Elaine Freed
Gloria Hersch
Redwood Credit Union
Mary Ellen Smith
Syar Foundation
Tai Laguna Fund of Community Foundation Sonoma County

The Mental Health Talent Pipeline was launched in 2018 to increase equitable access to bilingual, culturally sensitive mental health services across our region by providing scholarships to local aspiring bilingual mental health professionals dedicated to serving north county’s Latine communities.

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Spirit of Wetzel Award 2024: Jade Weymouth

Q & A with La Familia Sana’s Executive Director about the roots of community health and wellbeing

For Jade Weymouth, commitment to community is a family value and a longstanding practice. Many years before becoming executive director of La Familia Sana—where her farsighted commitment to health equity and social justice have helped make Cloverdale’s grassroots nonprofit a trusted and essential partner to Latine residents—seven-year-old Jade was selling raffle tickets to fundraise for a Latina college fund. 

“I grew up in a community-minded family,” she tells us, in a recent conversation. “My great-grandfather and my grandma organized with the United Farm Workers and the Community Rural Legal Association in Watsonville, Salinas, Gilroy, and Central California. I have so many memories of marching for farmworker rights during the table grape, lettuce, and Safeway boycotts. My grandma started a nonprofit organization called the Latina Coalition in Gilroy.”

Jade also recalls her mother starting up transitional housing (“across the street from where we lived”) for young mothers aging out of the foster system, and her grandmother strategizing with her peers, “planning and organizing in the community to create systems change in the school district and at the city level.” Given this family legacy and her own subsequent career, it comes as no surprise when Jade notes, “this work has seeped into my DNA.”

“My own nonprofit experience started at Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA), as an Americorps member providing assessments for children up to 5-years-old who have survived in-home violence,” she relates. “That was extremely traumatizing work, but it set the foundation of many of my personal and professional values working within community. 

“For the past decade, my focus has been on serving the Cloverdale community, its families, and ensuring access to high-quality resources and services.”

For her significant and ongoing contribution to community health and wellbeing through La Familia Sana, and the lifetime of service and advocacy it builds on, the Healthcare Foundation is thrilled to recognize Jade Weymouth with the 2024 Spirit of Wetzel Award.

Full Article (4 min read)

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Join us on Thursday, November 7, 2024, from 8:30 to 10:00 am, at Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg for a celebratory breakfast event honoring this year’s Wetzel Community Leadership Award recipient Deborah Howell, CEO of Alexander Valley Healthcare, and Spirit of Wetzel Award recipient Jade Weymouth, Executive Director of La Familia Sana. Longstanding champions of our region’s health and wellbeing, both Deborah and Jade demonstrate extraordinary community leadership and service in both their professional roles and across years of volunteer service. We couldn’t be more excited to be honoring these two remarkable women!

Thank you to our sponsors! (Full list here)

If you or your business would like to sponsor the Wetzel Awards, please contact Mary Ott, Development Director at
mott@healthcarefoundation.net or 707-473-0583.

More information about sponsorships here

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Spotlight on Mental Health: Healdsburg High’s New Student Wellness Center

In 2023, Healdsburg High School opened a new student Wellness Center, designed as a welcoming and safe space on-campus for students to go during school hours, talk with trained staff (in English or Spanish), and access a range of wellness services. While the new center expects to add more services and resources in the near future, mental health services are already available on-site and via partnering organizations. 

We first heard about the new Wellness Center in our conversation in May of this year with Zenia Lemos Horning, lead psychologist and program specialist at Healdsburg Unified School District. To learn more, we spoke recently with Kim Harris, the Wellness Coordinator, about how the Center works and how it has been received by students, faculty and parents in its first full year of operation at Healdsburg High.

Kim is a Marriage & Family Therapist and a northern Sonoma County native, raised in Windsor and Santa Rosa, who earned her graduate degree in counseling psychology from Berkeley’s Wright Institute. She did her first traineeship while a graduate student at the now closed Social Advocates for Youth in Santa Rosa. She returned to northern Sonoma County seven years ago to pursue her career in the region she is from. “It’s been really nice to be back here with my family and friends,” she says, “and to help give back to the community I was raised in.”

Full Article (4 min read)