Fellow Profiles

2009 North Fair Oaks Fellows

Vicky Avila-Medrano

Vicky Avila-Medrano is a Visión y Compromiso promotora and community health worker, as well as the chronic diseases project coordinator and community program specialist for El Concilio of San Mateo. She works to promote activities and participate actively with agencies, institutions, and initiatives to improve the quality of life of the community. She works to encourage access to education, healthcare, and job opportunities, emphasizing the defense of human rights by promoting a lifestyle of health and safety for immigrants living in the U.S. She also works to encourage peer-exchanges of experiences of the immigrant community and those living here. In 2008 she received the recognition of Congress for 12 years of volunteering in mental health in San Mateo, and was named the “2008 Champion of Change” in nutrition and physical activity in the Bay Area.

Lydia Cardoza
Lydia Cardoza was born and raised in East Palo Alto, and she graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School in 2007. Lydia has worked as a public services assistant and translator for the Sheriff’s Office in North Fair Oaks since January 2008. She first came to the Sheriff’s Office as a participant in the Explorer Program, a community volunteer program, in 2006 at the age of 17. She still volunteers with the Explorer Program, helping to engage other young people and supporting various community activities. Lydia works translating for citizens who need to file police reports or have questions and she enjoys helping them and giving them a sense of comfort when they know that there is someone available who speaks their language. She especially enjoys working with the North Fair Oaks community and feels it is a unique place with a lot to offer.

Noel Chavez
Noel Chavez came to North Fair Oaks as a child with his family from Michoacán, Mexico. One of 11 children, he felt blessed to be part of a family that valued education and giving back to the community. As a high school student he became involved in the Young Latino Leaders group, and was eventually elected vice president of a group of 30 young people, helping lead them in community service work. Noel was the first recipient of a scholarship from the neighborhood-based Gardner’s Association Foundation, which has now grown to help many students from NFO. He recently received his AA from Cañada College, and he was working full-time while attending school when he became the vice president of Associated Students of Cañada College, and received the Cañada College President’s Leadership Award. In fall 2008, Noel was hired as the community liaison for the Migrant Program, working with immigrant students who have dropped out of Sequoia High School in North Fair Oaks. He works to support these young people with services to get them back to school and provides information about community resources, community colleges, and vocational programs. Noel is passionate about film and has worked on several small film projects, one of which documented the Emperor Norton of San Francisco and won an award at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. He is very determined to continue his education and plans to finish a Bachelor’s degree in community studies or social welfare and earn a graduate degree in education policy.

Teri Chin
Teri Chin has been the Human Services Manager for Redwood City for the last nine years. She oversees the Fair Oaks Community Center, a multi-service center which brings together public and nonprofit agencies providing a variety of services ranging from food programs, legal services, and homelessness assistance to a fully operating senior center and child care program. The Fair Oaks Community Center, strategically located on the border of Redwood City and North Fair Oaks, primarily serves low-income families and individuals from these communities. Teri serves as the primary liaison for the City with the San Mateo County Human Services Agency and with other human service providers, promoting collaboration and coordination amongst all to best serve the community. Most recently, Teri has been actively involved in the development and implementation of San Mateo County’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness – HOPE. Teri also serves on several county-wide committees and has been the recipient of several local community awards including the Family Service Agency Advocate Award, the HOPE Above and Beyond Award, and the Susan Takalo Hunger Advocate Award. 

Lorena Gonzalez
Lorena González was born and raised in North Fair Oaks and continues to live there, on the same street where her parents and sister own homes. She currently works for the County of San Mateo as human services manager. Before working for the County of San Mateo, Lorena was the administrative clerk for Fair Oaks Community Center where she had direct contact with many of the residents from North Fair Oaks. Lorena has also been a volunteer for the North Fair Oaks Festival and has been on the board of directors for the Community Education Center. Lorena holds a Master of Public Administration from California State University, East Bay.

Sister Christina Heltsley, EdD
Sr. Christina holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education and certification to teach preschool through college. She also earned two Master of Arts degrees. Her Master's degree in Administration and Supervision is from the University of Dayton in Ohio. She earned both an Master's of Arts in Educational Technology as well as a doctoral degree in Administration and Leadership from the University of San Francisco. Sr. Christina has taught all grades, kindergarten through graduate school, throughout her career in education. She has been a school principal, primarily in inner-city schools, and a superintendent of Catholic schools. When the opportunity came up in 2000 to be the executive director of the St. Francis Center she jumped at the chance to work more directly with the economically poor and exclaims that she absolutely loves her job. The St. Francis Center is located in the heart of North Fair Oaks and serves the most vulnerable of the community with bagged food services, 24 affordable housing units, free showers and laundry services, community garden plots, and a small school. In addition to Sr. Christina’s wealth of teaching, educational leadership, and social service experience, in 2008, she was honored as Redwood City’s Citizen of the Year.

Mary Hofstedt

Mary Hofstedt joined the John W. Gardner Center (JGC) staff in September 2003. From 2003 to 2006, Mary directed the school-based Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning (YELL) program in Redwood City. Today, she trains program staff, mentors, and Stanford undergraduate and graduate students in youth development theory and practice, and supports strategies for youth leadership and participation in Redwood City and beyond. Prior to her work with JGC, Mary spent six years as the education and development director of The Earth’s Birthday Project, a national environmental education not-for-profit based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Outside of JGC, Mary co-facilitates a mindfulness and meditation group for teens, and serves on the board of directors for the Peninsula School in Menlo Park. Mary received a Bachelor’s Degree from Southern Methodist University and a Master’s in Social Science in Education from Stanford University. She is passionate about youth development and voice, environmental stewardship, and community development – and how these three areas fit together. She has lived in North Fair Oaks since 2007.

Priscilla Jimenez

Priscilla Jimenez grew up in North Fair Oaks and continues to live in the community. She has worked for five years at Fair Oaks School as the family support specialist providing resources and activities to engage families in the school. Some of the activities she has implemented include morning classes with the principal for parents to ask questions, numerous education workshops, parent support groups, Zumba exercise classes, a walking club, and ESL classes. She is also extremely dedicated to supporting the children at the school, and has gotten to know the students well through teaching an afterschool program. Priscilla is passionate about supporting the families of the school in a holistic way, and with her bilingual and bicultural understanding is looked to as a valuable and trusted resource person by the community. 

Salvador Mejia

Salvador Mejia is currently the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office Community Alliance to Revitalize our Neighborhood (CARON) program coordinator. Salvador immigrated to the United States in 2000 along with his wife and two children after residing in El Salvador. During this time, he worked in different countries of Central and South America including Mexico and in different states of the United States organizing immigrant communities that had to leave El Salvador because of the armed conflicts during the 1980s. Upon his arrival to the United States, Salvador incorporated himself into community work of the Bay Area. He worked as a consultant in different community initiatives sponsored by the Peninsula Community Foundation, Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center, and the Packard Foundation among others. Salvador is currently developing the CARON program with a focus on involving Hispanic families in community organizations so that they obtain a greater participation in schools and in their own communities in the unincorporated North Fair Oaks area and in communities on the coast side of San Mateo County. In September 2006, Salvador was nominated for the volunteer award of the year and the CARON program was nominated for program of the year by the California Crime Prevention Officer’s Association and the California Attorney General Crime and Violence Prevention Center. 

Cesar Meza-Esveile

Cesar Meza-Esveile joined the Multicultural Institute in 2006 to work with the day laborer program in West Berkeley and agreed to take on the challenge of establishing and directing a parallel program in the North Fair Oaks area within that same year. In addition to supervising two other staff members on the project, he has worked to seamlessly integrate the Multicultural Institute into local and regional institutional networks, coordinating with county, city, nonprofit, local businesses, and other community partners. The team’s work, under Cesar’s guidance, have piloted the Institute’s primary hands-on learning in assisting day laborers with wage-claims, helping workers negotiate with their employers directly or navigate mediation through the Labor Commissioner, and other resources. The team creates a learning classroom on the street, as they work with the day laborers waiting for jobs. They also host a weekly soccer game and lunch which is wildly popular with over 100 men showing up weekly. Cesar’s background includes studies in philosophy and humanities, and work experience in the areas of youth and vocational education in Chile, Mexico, and Europe.

Lucia Molina

Lucia Molina was born and raised in North Fair Oaks. She has worked as an office assistant at Garfield Charter School since 1997. During this time, she has become a member of the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) and has co-facilitated workshops for parents to support bilingual education and help their children to aim for higher education. In 2008 she co-facilitated a workshop called How to Support Your Child in a Bilingual Classroom at the annual CABE conference in San Jose. Lucia has also partnered with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s office's Community Alliance to Rehabilitate our Neighborhood (CARON) committee. Through the San Mateo County Office of Education, she was the program coordinator for the Mother/Daughter Program. In this capacity, Lucia worked with twenty fifth grade students and their mothers with the goal of preparing them to go through college. She also coordinated a second program called Family and Technology in which she co-taught 20 third grade students and their parents basic computer skills. In 2007, she was awarded a one-year grant to create community-based programming at Garfield. With this grant, Lucia led a group of 15 parents through a series of workshops and coordinated school events that brought culture and community to Garfield School.

Silvia Ramirez

Silvia Ramirez is a community leader concerned with conflict resolution. She has lived in Redwood City for 18 years. Silvia has worked as a bilingual community promoter with Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA) since 2003 and with the Latina Center in the Women Health and Leadership Program since 2002. She has also been a community liaison and producer’s assistant for Marcos Guitierrez Productions on Radio 1010 and 990 AM providing information regarding community issues since 2001. Silvia also currently works as a community organizer with Peninsula Interfaith for Action (PIA). Through PIA she has led the local organizing committee at El Buen Pastor Church on social justice issues, and organized them around the issue of residents losing their cars to impoundment from parking tickets they are unable to pay. She has been active in information dissemination to immigrant communities, led trainings on violence prevention with the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center, and started a chapter of Padres Unidos at Sequoia High School.

Angelica Rodriguez

Angelica Rodriguez was born and raised in North Fair Oaks. While in high school, she participated in the Young Latino Leaders group doing community service and volunteer work at the food bank, picking up trash, and planting trees. Angelica is a former community health worker at the Nuestro Canto de Salud Diabetes Clinic, located at the Fair Oaks Adult Clinic. In this position she led workshops and taught patients about health and prevention. The majority of the patients were from the Greater North Fair Oaks community and the workshops were all done in Spanish and a culturally relevant manner. Angelica also helped run the Chronic Disease Prevention Program and the Child Obesity Prevention Program. These experiences lead to her decision to go back to school and gain extra knowledge and training to bring back to the community. Angelica began a Master’s Program in Public Health in fall 2009 at UC Berkeley.