Project MANA - A Hunger Relief Agency

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: Josie Garcia, a Project MANA boardmember, has always been driven by a desire to serve the Latino community. Her personal mission evolves from her family role, growing up in Texas and in central California, near Fresno. Her dad spoke both English and Spanish but worked long hours as a field laborer, and her mother never learned English. She was the child they depended on to translate and to figure out how to get things done in an unfamiliar culture. "I knew how hard it was to find resources," she said. "I want to make it easier for others."

Since moving to Tahoe in 1992, she has found her niche working with some of the nonprofit agencies now housed in the Donald W. Reynolds Community Non-Profit Center. Garcia applied her business background to her first job as billing services coordinator at Tahoe Women's Services, when the agency was just getting its feet on the ground. From there, she began working for Project MANA, back in its earliest days, when founder Ann Ryan was running the agency from her home. Garcia helped the nonprofit move to its office in the Centerpointe Building in the early 1990s. After working as office staff, Garcia accepted an AmeriCorps VISTA position with the agency. As usual, she helped with much of the translation, as well as getting some of the agency's programs get off the ground.

One of the highlights of Garcia's year as a Volunteer In Service To America was being sent to Washington, D.C. for a conference on hunger. " Television cameras were there, three U.S. senators and representatives from all over the country," she said. "Then I found my name tag, at one of four seats." She and three others were the main speakers. The others filled seats in a circle around them. "A senator asked what we can do for the nation," she said. Garcia said she explained to them that the communities around the lake are remote from their county centers, so residents tend to be overlooked when it comes to social services. She said she told them about the nonprofit agencies working toward a collaboration, and she explained the new programs at Project MANA.

Garcia went back to Tahoe Women's Services after working with hunger relief, and began a self-support group for Latino women. "One of the wonderful things was seeing how the women started to help each other," she said. Many gained legal status and a couple of them not only found good jobs but bought homes in Reno. She was still running these groups when she heard that La Communidad Unida was in trouble. Garcia said she went to Dave Ferrari and George LeBard and asked how she could help. "Dave Ferrari said I could help by becoming the new executive director," she said. It was a lot of hard work, particularly with only one person to help run the office. "Within six months we were serving between 200 and 300 clients a month," she said. "Once people found out something was happening there, word spread." People would bring in meals to say thank-you. "When you deal with families it's not an eight-to-five job," said her husband Joe.

Garcia spent two years there and then she and her husband left to spend a year in Aguascalientes, Mexico. When they returned to Incline Village, the long-awaited Donald W. Reynolds Non-Profit Center was finished, and the Parasol Community Foundation was hiring. She is the receptionist, and her husband Joe maintains the building. "I never thought I'd be working in the building," Garcia said. As receptionist, she continues to serve people in need. "When people come in and find out someone speaks Spanish, they're so relieved," she said. "I have never turned anyone away."

Joe said they still see people in the grocery store who remember how Josie helped them obtain legal status. "They bring family members in and introduce them as the ones they needed the papers for," Joe said. Although Joe has had his own business throughout most of their marriage, he also has worked as a volunteer for Project MANA and other agencies. These days they've been working together with the Nevada chapter of the American Wheelchair Foundation, one of the newest agencies in the Parasol Community Foundation collaboration.

After a decade in the community, their two children are grown and married, after spending the last part of their childhood in Tahoe's safe and healthy environment. "You don't spend your time working here for the money; it's for the good feeling of being able to help people," Garcia said.

Merry Thomas
Bonanza staff writer