by Marvin Ramírez
L-R: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, MNC executive director Santiago “Sam” Ruiz, MNC board of directors member Tiffany Rasmussen, and president of the board Jim Salinas Sr., during the 50th anniversary of the center at SF City Hall. (Photo by Katia Fuentes).
With all the majestic honors that it deserves, Mission Neighborhood Centers (MNC) celebrated its 50th Anniversary on April 23 with an elegant dinner in the rotunda of the beautiful San Francisco City Hall, a Beaux-Arts monument that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917.
Unlike other nonprofit institutions that have suffered the devastating consequences of the beginning of a current economic collapse nearing the Great Depression of the 1920s, the MNC, although is struggling to maintain its current services intact, is receiving wide support from the City and private institutions. Its endeavor mission is something many cannot afford to let die. For this reason, its black-tie fundraising dinner tickets sold out.
Being one of a few Latino centers that provides a helping hand to the most vulnerable ones in the San Francisco Latino community, its services offer culturally appropriate services to children, youth and seniors, and it’s the brain organizer of the San Francisco Carnival, one of most colorful attractions to the City by the Bay.
The MNC, an umbrella organization for a large number of organizations – distributed at 14 different locations citywide – provides services to low income seniors, youth, preschool children and their families, and is one of the most venerated organizations in the City. It is considered a model institution to many.
Funded by two Irish sisters in 1959 as a girl’s club, the organization started as a type of shelter for young pregnant women. At present, it provides services through its development programs for children, which in the past 10 years has impacted over 3,000 children, while its youth development program offers guidance that nurtures positive changes among high-risk and gang–affiliated youth, with tools and confidence to reach their fullest potential, including leadership training.
It senior’s program is one of the most loved services, and the most cared by its longtime executive director Santiago Ruíz, who has been at the forefront of the organization success for almost three decades. Ruíz
MNC from page 1was honored with a community service award, along with Steve Contreras, Jim Contreras, Jim Queen and Ray Rivera.
Latino seniors of all steps of life not only can enjoy a delicious hot, Latino meal for less than $2 at MNC, but can also receive classes that help improve their lives, such as English, citizenship among others. Its senior program also offers elders wellness and health education and promote independent living to approximately 700 seniors a year.
The center’s services expand to outer Mission, Excelsior, Mission Bay and BayView/Hunter’s Point districts, and employs over 150 bilingual/multicultural people.
The event included awards to a good group of community members that had contributed in making a difference in the lives of those in need, scholarship grants, while the ambiance was filled with the performance of SF’s salsa talent, Julio Bravo and his Orchestra, The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco, and Berta Olivia y su Mariachi Mexicanísimo.
A silent auction was also part of the excitement of the evening, in which dozens of art pieces donated by many local artists and business, and gift cards to eat at more than a dozen restaurants, and tickets to local sports events landed in the hands of many lucky ones. The MNC’s is located at 362 Capp in San Francisco.
