Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Padilla.
Hi Lisa, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a native of Dallas. I was raised in West Dallas and moved right down the street to Oak Cliff when I married my husband, Anthony Padilla when I was 20 years old. I had my first child, a son, soon after. Over the next ten years I would have 3 other children, all daughters. I was a stay at home mom during this time and loved it. I helped my mother who was chronically ill, I was active in my children’s school and after-school activities. After my 3rd child was born, I went to work part-time, 10 hours a week, at the City of Dallas WIC program. I worked part time as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor at WIC for the next seven years and I did not know then that it was the impetus for my career in Community Health and Advocacy. I loved the work I did as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor at WIC. It was there that I started on my journey as an untitled Community Health Worker/Promotora. I am now a Certified Community Health Worker Instructor and Community Health Worker. I wear those certifications as a badge of honor.
I was lucky enough to transition into a position as a Caseworker trainee at Parkland Hospital’s Dallas Healthy Start program. I began to learn more about community advocacy, maternal and child health and an entire world opened up of working in communities at the frontline level.
As my kids grew up, they would “work” with me, my husband would also, in all levels of what I was involved in. Community work can be physically taxing, as my kids still remind of me today. My children have fond memories of going with me on Saturdays to health fairs, sitting through car seat safety classes, loading and unloading car seats, sometimes 100’s, picking up donated books and baby items that I would give away in classes and the list of activities goes on and on. Every December we spent an afternoon loading 100’s of donated toys and helping box them up to be distributed to needy children and families.
Needless to say, I had a passion for, and still do, community work at the deepest level. It was through my work at Parkland Hospital that I learned about data driven interventions, innovation, community driven programs and collective impact. I would eventually spend over 16 years at Parkland, working many of the community based programs that are based at Parkland. I had the opportunity to return to school and complete not only my Bachelor’s degree but also my Master’s degree.
My time at Parkland enabled me to learn about all areas of community resources, impact, and sustainable community change that occurs because of involving community residents and data from that community. I learned that you approach a community on their terms and their needs. I also learned that we miss the mark in this work if we do not address Social Determinants of Health as a part of programming and care management. It is of the utmost importance that we approach our work with a racial and equity lens. Social determinants of health and an equitable lens ensures we approach the community on their terms, which enables us to build trust and then make an impact.
I also learned a lot at another community based program, Love for Kids Inc. where I was lucky enough to sign on as their part time Executive Director. I did this while working full time at Parkland and also finishing my Master’s degree. I was hired at Love for Kids to create strategy, capacity and create programming. I worked with the Board of Directors, longtime funders and volunteers and we made great and sustainable change. Through my work there we created a clothes closet, reading program and a programming for senior citizens. Impactful, sustainable resources came out of my work at Love for Kids.
I currently work at JPS Health Network as the Community Outreach Manager. I am in charge of all community outreach, engagement, and wellness initiatives for the network. Tarrant County is much different than Dallas, but not so different. Most of the health and resource challenges are the same. Collaboration and partnership is very important to JPS as is community impact. I was there for one year, just getting my footing, when COVID 19 came out of nowhere and impacted our approach in community involvement. Like everyone, I came home to work in March of 2020 and we transitioned all community involvement to an online platform. Obviously, I was out of sorts and didn’t know what to do. I was unsure, like many others, of how to approach community interventions from home and online, and live during a pandemic and keep myself and family safe.
JPS leaders were on board with all community work being virtual. I created toolkits, resources about COVID and a Latino/African America initiative to address the disproportionate illness/deaths due to COVID. I knew I had to do something else to help people during this time. Not everyone was lucky enough to take their job home. I knew that people were unemployed, hungry, sick and dying, I was very overwhelmed and always thinking, “for the first time in my life I don’t know how to help people”. It was at that time that I thought “well I can help”. I had read about people creating free food pantries in front of their homes. They did so under the premise of “take what you need, leave what you can” and I knew that is what we could do! We could keep distance, just add food and toiletries and people could come as they wanted to take what need and if they could they could also leave donations.
I had an old desk, that me and my husband painted, my son-in-law did the printing on a sign to go on top of the desk, and my daughter, Amber Padilla painted the Virgen de Guadalupe on the side of the desk. This was something I specifically asked her to do. She is an Artist and I knew she could paint it. I always look to the Virgen in times of trouble, she gives me hope and I wanted others, if they needed, to know there was hope.
We finished our construction and had our “Melba House Blessing Box” in front of our home on April 14th, 2020. We had less than ten food items in it. Amber and her husband, Jonathon Smith, did a post on Instagram and Facebook and by the next morning the Melba House Blessing Box was packed.
So many donations of food started to come to us that we packed “Blessing Boxes” of food and did porch drop-offs. Over this year we have had people come daily and some only when they absolutely needed it. Some people come in the middle of the night so they are not seen. Others leave notes of thanks or items like pictures their children have drawn or Bibles. People continue to be in need so they continue to come to the box, and so do the donations. We have shared food with other food pantries, distributed school supplies, masks, voter registration cards, COVID 19 safety information, books, and toys. IN December we participated in LULAC’s Cena en el Barrio and distributed almost 25,000 pounds of food to 60 families.
My daughter Amber is for all intents and purposes the development and programming director for Melba House Blessing Box. She has worked alongside me with this venture all year and there are no signs we will stop soon. Along with working and sustaining the pantry she has gotten married, been pregnant, and given birth to a son, Sebastian during 2020. We estimate our Melba House Blessing Box has feed over 2500 people this year.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. Community advocacy and front line work is hard to do and not for the faint-of-heart. It is hard to work with people who cannot buy medications, pay utilities, rent, have transportation, or are going through loss and grief. Areas of need continue to be: resources and health care for the undocumented, homelessness, mental health, zip codes dictating health outcomes, poverty, infant mortality and systemic racism.
Personally, the struggles have been primarily the heaviness of it of this work. Community advocacy is so much work and it takes a long time to create change. Many people give up and community residents get tired of people coming into their neighborhoods to “make them better” and then the grant funds run out and the agency is gone. This happens over and over and the target audience is so tired of it.
Trust will never be built if the approach continues of some non-profits continues to be “get in and get out.” Many of the issues today that plaque marginalized communities like, teen pregnancy, child injury, crime, poverty and homelessness, poor health outcomes, these are all the issues that plagued Dallas when I was a child.
We should have accomplished more impact by now. We need more partnership and collaboration in Dallas between non-profits, businesses, and other systems. There should also be a mechanism to address systemic racism at the core.
There should be wider utilization of Community Health Workers (CHW) across systems and not just in health care. CHW’s are “Of the community and by the community.” They serve as the eyes and ears of their neighborhoods and they are the fastest route to community impact, change, and better health outcomes.
The competencies of a CHW will work anyplace and in any field or job. To strive for a decrease in poverty and increase in education institutions should also listen to our people of color, Latino, African American, Native American and Asian populations as they speak about their population and specific needs to enhance their lives. Their increased voice should be heard in every conversation, and during all planning. Populations of color should not be an afterthought or celebrated for a month or so during the year when we celebrate cultural holidays. We also need more people of color as leaders in non-profits and in teaching. People of color can lend a voice and lived experience to the nonprofit world that is desperately needed at the leadership level.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am an expert in community programs, resources and advocacy. I approach my work within the framework of social determinants of health, race, partners and data. I work from the Community Development framework. Basically, that means, I will bring together partners in the community to create action, generate solutions and change. I don’t do any of the work by myself. I am an expert at programming, and can map resources and logic models but if I miss the important step of bringing partners to the table, to have a say in the work, planning and implementation, I have missed the biggest step.
I know development concept is evident in Melba House Blessing Box. I facilitate and lead the process, generate donations, keep it all together, recruit for our board, and we are ready to take it to the next level. I am proud of many things in my career. I am very proud of the work that we have done with Melba House Blessing Box. I have had a lot of successes at the local and State levels and have my eye on a partnership at a national level. But most recently Melba House Blessing Box is my proud moment. It is truly a labor of love that my daughter and I work on, daily. But of course, I have involved all of my children in this success. But the bigger picture is that we were able to feed people in need during a worldwide pandemic.
What sets me apart is my want and need to advocate for marginalized communities. I always want to be the voice for the voiceless. I am a Public Voices Fellow, funded by the Boone Family Foundation, through The Dallas OpEd Project. The fellowship has been a life changing opportunity for me. The OpEd Project is a national initiative to “change who writes history”. Through my OpEd’s I can advocate in a different way with a much wider reach. I have written two OpEd’s so far, “Human Rights: Access to Healthcare for Everyone in America”, published in The Hill Reporter, and “The Reality of U.S. Racism” originally published in The Progressive. My OpEd on Racism has been published 13 more times with a projected readership of over 600,000.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson is that there is always a way to get the job done. It takes time for change to occur and sometimes the road you are working on is not a straight one; there can be many bumps along that road. Bumpy issues like COVID 19, lack of funding, time constraints, they are all bumps, some are bigger bumps, but remember you will get over it somehow, someway. There is always a way to get to your end result.
Contact Info:
- Email: melbahouseblessingbox@gmail.com
- Website: https://melba-house-blessing-box.business.site/#gallery
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Melba-House-Blessing-Box-100107038615024
