CPLC honors Valley leaders

Chi­canos por la Causa, Inc. (CPLC) held its 41^st anniver­sary din­ner at the Sher­a­ton Phoenix Down­town Hotel on April 22, and paid trib­ute to com­mu­nity lead­ers who have made a pos­i­tive impact in the Valley.

This year’s hon­orees were Dr. Eliz­a­beth Ortiz de Valdez of Con­cilio Latino de Salud, who received the Advance­ment in Health­care Award; Lydia Guz­man of Respect/Respeto, who was given the Lor­raine Lee Advo­cacy Award, and State Farm was hon­ored with the CPLC Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Award.

“These two indi­vid­u­als and State Farm have worked tire­lessly to pro­mote com­mu­nity devel­op­ment,” said Edmundo Hidalgo, CPLC’s pres­i­dent and CEO.

The event was spon­sored by APS, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Ari­zona, Kahala and Wells Fargo, among others.

The annual fundraiser gath­ers com­mu­nity mem­bers to sup­port the nonprofit’s mis­sion of build­ing stronger, health­ier com­mu­ni­ties through its com­pre­hen­sive plat­form of ser­vices in edu­ca­tion, hous­ing, eco­nomic devel­op­ment and health and human services.

About the honorees

Lydia Guz­man

Lydia Guz­man started empow­er­ing com­mu­ni­ties 17 years ago in her home state of Cal­i­for­nia, where she served as a mem­ber of the Coali­tion for Human Immi­grants Rights of Los Ange­les (CHIRLA). Since mov­ing to Ari­zona, she has served as direc­tor of voter out­reach for Sec­re­tary of State Bet­sey Bay­less, and state direc­tor for the South­west Voter Reg­is­tra­tion and Edu­ca­tion Project. She also tes­ti­fied for the reau­tho­riza­tion of the National Vot­ing Rights Act and served as direc­tor of edu­ca­tion and out­reach for the Clean Elec­tions Institute.

Dur­ing the past sev­eral years, Lydia has been instru­men­tal in doc­u­ment­ing alleged abuses of author­ity in Mari­copa County and has pro­vided exten­sive data to the U.S. Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity. Cur­rently, Lydia is the pres­i­dent of Somos Amer­ica, a coali­tion of over 35 orga­ni­za­tions that pro­vide ser­vice, advo­cacy and empow­er­ment to the His­panic and immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties. She also runs a hot­line called Respect/Respeto, tak­ing calls from immi­grants who, at many times, have nowhere else to turn.

Dr. Ortiz de Valdez is the cofounder and pres­i­dent of Con­cilio Latino de Salud, a community-based non­profit estab­lished in 1989 and ded­i­cated to improv­ing the over­all health of the Latino com­mu­nity and other under­served minor­ity com­mu­ni­ties in Mari­copa County through health pro­mo­tion and dis­ease pre­ven­tion. She is also co-founder of Cul­tural Com­mu­ni­ties United in Health and Well­ness (CCUHW) and a found­ing mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Union Against STDs and HIV (ULACETS) among other coali­tions and organizations.

Dr. Ortiz de Valdez’s pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment as an inter­cul­tur­al­ist is holis­tic, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary, and uses a mul­ti­di­men­sional approach to achieve cul­tural com­pe­tence. From 2002–2004, she served as a mem­ber of the Governor’s Com­mis­sion on the Health Sta­tus of Women and Fam­i­lies in Ari­zona. She is also a mem­ber of the expert panel on men­tal health in schools, coun­sel­ing, psy­chol­ogy and social ser­vices for the White House Ini­tia­tive on School Vio­lence Prevention.

State Farm® Insurance

State Farm’s com­mu­nity rela­tions mis­sion is to help cre­ate a healthy busi­ness envi­ron­ment through phil­an­thropy and by work­ing with national and local rela­tion­ships to build safer, stronger and better-educated communities.

For more than a decade, CPLC and State Farm have worked to estab­lish a mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship and have part­nered to bring needed ser­vices as well as cheer and good­will to the com­mu­nity. State Farm Com­mu­nity Vol­un­teers and CPLC’s staff and vol­un­teers have devoted more than 2,250 vol­un­teer hours and con­tributed over $360,000 to our community.

Addi­tion­ally, the State Farm es Para Mi™ (State Farm is For Me) pro­gram reaches Latino com­mu­ni­ties through the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion and mate­ri­als cen­tered on edu­ca­tion, civic engage­ment, and an appre­ci­a­tion for cul­ture. Since 2008, the State Farm es Para Mi edu­ca­tional grant pro­gram has pro­vided over $30,000 to Hispanic-serving edu­ca­tional organizations.