Healthcare is Community | El Acceso al Cuidado da la Salud Empieza en Comunidad

Dear Friends,

I am sometimes asked, “What is the role that a foundation plays?” I love to answer with an emphatic:

“A vital role.”

For one thing, foundations can serve as a central point for connecting charitable giving with support for vital services and programs within a specific geographical area. Such localized attention is an important part of a foundation’s role: a local foundation will almost always have the most complete, in-depth knowledge of local strengths and opportunities, and be able to respond quickly to hyper-local needs, guiding philanthropic dollars in the most effective way.

Beyond these benefits, foundations act as community leaders, advocates, and conveners. By bringing people together around common goals, they can help ensure sustainability in key areas of activity for the common good, helping to manage resources and maximize social impact.

I am proud to share that our small foundation is successfully serving our region in all these ways, and that our role is having an outsized impact.

Earlier this month we held our annual Mental Health Talent Pipeline gathering. It was an inspiring evening where students, faculty, community members, foundation supporters and staff all had the opportunity to get to know each other, or to get acquainted, and to hear inspirational testimonials from two of our Mental Health Talent Pipeline scholarship recipients: current University of San Francisco graduate student Aarón Solorio and USF alum Nallely Ramirez.

The Mental Health Talent Pipeline Program is right now supporting its sixth cohort through USF Santa Rosa’s Master’s in Counseling Psychology program.

The reason that this program exists, and has proven so successful, is because a group of donors came together, through our foundation, with a shared recognition of the urgent need for diverse mental health practitioners in Sonoma County. They committed to multi-year funding and trusted the Healthcare Foundation to carry out their vision.

The multi-year financial commitment allowed the Healthcare Foundation to operate the program in a highly strategic manner, with the ability to plan for the future and aim for longer-term outcomes. The Mental Health Talent Pipeline has now become a model of what’s possible, with the University of San Francisco planning to replicate it at their San Jose campus.

This is a perfect example of how multi-year, flexible funding translates into measurable impact. This level of impact is what we strive for with every initiative we take on at the Foundation.

I encourage you all to be like the donors who pioneered the Mental Health Talent Pipeline and put their full faith into their local foundation. We have shown what we can do with this type of investment in local talent to address a critical local need—now just imagine what we can do next!

Please enjoy this month’s newsletter and thank you for being a friend of the Foundation. We couldn’t do it without you.

Sincerely,

Amy Ramirez
Executive Director

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“This is for my community”: Mental Health Talent Pipeline Gathering 2025

On Monday, April 14th, we held our annual Mental Health Talent Pipeline gathering at the beautiful Bricoleur Winery in Windsor. The joyful and dynamic event was hosted by our Board Vice Chair, and Mental Health Talent Pipeline alum, Daisy Cardenas, who led us through a “Human Bingo” exercise that playfully evaporated any lingering social anxiety we might have brought into the otherwise warm and inviting space.

Next, we were blessed to hear from two Mental Health Talent Pipeline scholarship recipients, Nallely Ramirez and Aarón Solorio, as guest speakers. 

Nallely, who graduated from the USF Santa Rosa master’s program in counseling psychology in 2024, is today an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist and Associate Professional Clinical Counselor at Alliance Medical Center. As Nallely shared to the rapt room, “As a first-generation Indigenous See Xánh (Triqui) woman, with family roots in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico, and born and raised in northern Sonoma County, this achievement has been deeply personal as well as academic for me. It’s a milestone I did not reach alone, nor is it solely for myself—this is for my community.”

Aarón Solorio, a current graduate student and scholarship recipient who entered the USF Santa Rosa program in 2023, shared moving words of his own about his experience growing up as a Latine male in Sonoma County. Aarón’s story allowed us all to better understand the underlying disparities driving the need for diverse practitioners and for access to higher education. 

“The need for diverse, well-trained mental health professionals has never been more urgent,” noted Aarón. “Our communities—especially those historically marginalized—are navigating immense challenges, from trauma to systemic inequities in healthcare access. The scholarship I received is more than just an investment in my education; it is an investment in the countless lives I will have the privilege of supporting in the near future.”

Read More About the Gathering (2 min read)

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MENTAL HEALTH TALENT PIPELINE

Did you know?

• Since 2018 the program has supported 24 scholarship recipients
• Invested $819,500 in building the capacity of local bilingual/bicultural providers
• Serves 1,100+ clients annually in Sonoma County
• Has served 4,000+ clients to date and growing – click to see impact map
• Funding contributed by individual donors and local organizations

Join our generous community of supporters.

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Health Is Community: A Conversation with ECO Group Facilitator Javi Cabrera-Rosales

The Healthcare Foundation and collaborating agencies On the Margins, Alexander Valley Healthcare, Cloverdale Senior Multipurpose Center, Council on Aging, La Familia Sana, and Nuestra Comunidad, established the Equity Community Organizing (ECO) Group in Cloverdale in 2023, supported by a $225,000 grant from The SCAN Foundation in partnership with the California Health Care Foundation. 

The initiative, which invited in over 20 local and predominantly Spanish-speaking seniors, engages older adults and local stakeholders in identifying and addressing the drivers of health inequities affecting especially low-income Latine seniors in the community. Through monthly bilingual meetings at the Cloverdale Senior Center, which began in January 2024, the ECO Group was designed to empower elders to explore barriers and solutions for aging in health, wellbeing, and community. By centering the voices and experiences of older adults, the ECO Group seeks to foster inclusion, equity, and community-led solutions for healthy aging.

The outcomes thus far have been impressive, with a key success being the creation of a strong, cohesive cohort. The engaged and committed set of relationships among the seniors themselves has made possible frank dialogue and collective action among otherwise highly isolated individuals. Indeed, as the program drew to a close, the Cloverdale seniors comprising the ECO Group expressed a strong desire to keep the group going, and plans are now underway by the Healthcare Foundation and other community partners to support the group in building on its achievements, newfound relationships, and collective power.

​​Cloverdale, situated at the northern edge of Sonoma County, is a small city with a population of approximately 8,900, making it relatively isolated from the county’s more urban centers. This geographic separation contributes to limited access to resources and services commonly available in larger communities. At the same time, a significant portion of the population lives below the federal poverty level, and the median household income is lower than the county average. These factors underscore the need for targeted initiatives like the ECO Group to address health and social disparities in the area.

Read Javi’s Full Article (4 min read)

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Introducing New Board member Rosa Gonzalez

Rosa Gonzalez, MPH, joined the Healthcare Foundation’s Board of Directors in January, bringing a wealth of personal experience and professional insight into the region’s health and social service landscape. A first-generation daughter of immigrants from Mexico, Rosa was raised in Healdsburg and Windsor, where she witnessed the barriers low-income, Spanish-speaking families face in accessing care. 

Those early experiences ignited her passion for health equity and set her on a path of advocacy and leadership—from translating for her family as a child, to earning a Master of Public Health from Yale, to returning home to Sonoma County with a commitment to serve her community. 

“I’m from Sonoma County and I love Sonoma County,” says Rosa. “I always knew I would end up back here.” 

Having previously served on the boards of Farm to Pantry, Latino Health Forum, and Alliance Medical Center, Rosa became the executive director of Farm to Pantry in 2024. 

A dedicated public health professional and active collaborator across the nonprofit sector, Rosa brings to the Healthcare Foundation an invaluable on-the-ground perspective on the systems of care that serve north county. In the conversation that follows, she reflects on her journey into public health, her return home, and the collaborative spirit she sees growing among local organizations—particularly those led by women of color—working to build a healthier, more equitable northern Sonoma County community.

Read Rosa’s Full Article (5 min read)