Kembly Astua Mahiri is originally from Costa Rica and grew up in Sonoma County as the oldest daughter of migrant farmworkers. She graduated from Piner High School after having participated in college preparation programs like Migrant Education and Upward Bound.

She also became involved in peer education programs like LSP. Her dream was to pursue higher education in a helping profession. Kembly was accepted to Sonoma State University and decided to pursue a degree in Sociology due to her strong interest in understanding human behavior and the relationship between people and their communities. After receiving her B.A. in Sociology, she went to work for a local non-profit serving at risk adolescents. This work inspired her to pursue her Master Degree in Social Work to gain more education on promoting the well-being of individuals and communities.

I was born in Guanajuato, Mexico and came to the US at the age of 4 and grew up in the in the central valley. I attended University of California, Santa Barbara for my undergraduate degree and obtained a B.S. in Sociology.

I then pursued my Masters at Sonoma State University and received a Masters in Counseling with a PPSC credential. I have been working since 2010 for Seneca Family of Agencies, a non-profit that works with youth and families in the community that are involved in a system, either Family Youth and Children’s Services, Probation, or Behavioral Health. Seneca provides behavioral skill building and coaching, assessment, therapy, psychiatry and case management services to address the mental health needs of youth and families.

While beginning her career in the 1980’s in the field of psychology, Dory Magasis Escobar, PhD has focused her work for the last several decades primarily on community organizing, coalition building, and grassroots leadership development.

As Director of Healthy Communities and then of Community Benefit at St. Joseph Health Sonoma County for 13 years, Dory oversaw community organizing, collaboration and other Healthy Communities programs; as well as the organization’s Community Benefit planning and reporting. Dory’s innovative integration of community organizing and collaboration into hospital Community Benefit work led to her participation in national work groups convened by the CDC, Dept. of Health & Human Services, and the Obama Administration’s White House Office on Neighborhood and Faith-Based Partnerships. Prior to joining St. Joseph’s, Dory worked for 11 years in El Salvador in the areas of community mental health, community-based rehabilitation, community organizing, and coalition building.

Her experience excludes training community health workers, or promotorxs de salud; as well as working with promotorxs and their supervising institutions on how to understand and address the risk and protective factors for secondary stress and traumatization that are experienced at community, institutional and personal levels. Dory founded Coaction Institute to help build capacity of community leaders and institutions such as community-based organizations, hospitals, public health agencies, other community stakeholders seeking to increase and enhance their capacities in collaboration, strategic planning and program evaluation, and authentic community engagement. Currently, Dr. Escobar also coordinates the Applied Practice Experience component of the University of San Francisco’s Master of Public Health program, in which she teaches Public Health Program Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation; Cultural Awareness and Humility for Health; Leadership; Collaboration and Community Organizing; and Applied Practice Experience Preparation and Seminars.

Luisa McInnis is the Division Director, Assistant Vice President at Robert Half International. She manages both the Account Temps & Salaried Professional Service divisions where she specializes in supporting various organizations throughout the North Bay area with accounting and finance support staff.

She graduated from Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, WA with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications in 2016, while also competing on the volleyball and track & field teams. After graduating, she returned to her home town of Santa Rosa, CA and immediately began her involvement in the volleyball community of Sonoma County.

My name is Cesia Jovel, pronouns are she/her/ella, I am a first-generation immigrant born in San Salvador, El Salvador.

I have lived in Sonoma County since I moved at 13 years-old to the U.S. in 2009. I attended Rancho Cotate High School, where I was part of the college-bound program, Upward Bound. I am also a first-generation college and graduate student where I earned my B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, I am a second-year graduate student at the University of San Francisco pursuing my M.A. in Counseling Psychology while also working at the YWCA of Sonoma County as Intake Coordinator in the Therapy Program.

Yesenia Hurtado-Rodarte spent most of her life in southern California, where blue skies and sunshine meet the echoes of fans cheering the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 2015, she relocated to Sonoma County to work at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) as an Outreach Coordinator; she later transitioned into her current role as a bilingual counselor for the Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOPS) at SRJC. Yesenia’s professional experience and background have significantly focused on promoting educational equity and access for all students. She has extensive experience advocating for historically underserved students, such as foster youth, probation youth, and parenting youth. Collaborating with LSP on the Youth Promotores project is an opportunity to continue empowering young Latinx individuals to improve self-advocacy, de-stigmatize mental health and develop professional growth opportunities.