Dear Centro SOL friends, as we approach to the end of the year and the beginning of a new decade, I would like to share with you some thoughts about our 2019 and the future of our center.
It is hard to believe that we have been together for half-a-decade. Since our center was conceived in 2013 thanks to the generous support from The Aaron and Lillie Straus Foundation and Hopkins Medicine, we have walked a long journey together. Our mission to promote equity in health and opportunity for Latinos has become stronger thanks to the support of many.
Fast-forward, in 2017 and 2018, our center was awarded grants that helped expand our work on children’s health and adult mental health with grants from the Patient-Center Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the Leonard & Helen R. Stulman Charitable Foundation, while our fight against HIV keeps being constantly strong.
Thank you for making 2019 memorable! Our team of faculty and staff has hands full with many activities from research protocols to recruitment and coordination of multidisciplinary networks. Our projects engage community participants and community members for all the programs and research. In addition to the well-known patient and family advisory boards for youth and caregivers, we host five additional subcommittees in our studies and parent and student advisory boards for our youth pipeline initiatives.
Our dissemination efforts have come to fruition as our publications were submitted and abstracts accepted to multiple conferences around the country. In addition to the 52 events with collaborating organizations, we hosted our Annual Health Fair, the Annual Back-to-School Drive, the first Youth Scholars Reunion, the first Suicide Prevention Summit and the 4th Latinx Health Conference promoting our mission and engaging our communities.
We close the year with the Annual Holiday Drive. I pause here for one second, as I look into 2020. Work is not a bed of roses every day, but it is worth it. We live times that make it harder for immigrants and Latinos to have healthy lives, thus, our goal is to make every effort to increase our positive impact.
This new year we start strong advocating for hard-to-count communities to be counted in the Census 2020, we will host follow up photovoice exhibits promoting our work on childhood obesity, and we will continue the interventions on mental health.
That is just a summary of a great beginning of the decade.
Thank you for wholeheartedly supporting us every day. Please share our news, like us, follow us. We look forward to counting on you for a star year ahead!
On behalf of the Centro SOL family, I wish you Happy Holidays and Prosperous and Healthy New Year!
Gracias por el apoyo profundo cada día. Por favor, comparte nuestras noticias, danos “me gusta”, síguenos. ¡Esperamos contar contigo para un año estelar!
En nombre de la familia Centro SOL, les deseo ¡Felices Fiestas y un Próspero y Saludable Nuevo Año!
Sincerely,
Monica Guerrero Vazquez, MPH, MS
Centro SOL Executive Director
