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Maria Marroquin is the Executive Director of the Day Worker Program in Mountain View. This program was established in 1996, serves 600 people per week, and recently
celebrated the opening of a new facility.
 | | Photo: Craig Sherod |
Maria is exceptional in her opinions, optimism and energy.
She is working with people who
need jobs and yet everyone
present has a smile on their face because there is camaraderie, support, hope, and friendship. This is an example of Maria's leadership.
Maria anchors and guides the Day Worker Program, supporting newcomers, people out of work, people who are undocumented, people who have family responsibilities, people who aspire to something better in life. Holding all this together is a prodigious effort.
Maria radiates confidence and is upbeat. She is also a tireless worker and is constantly designing new dimensions for her program, such as teaching ESL to the workers while they are waiting to be hired for a job. The Day Worker Program serves lunch, which the day workers themselves prepare, and has a regularly scheduled visit from a health van.
PVF gives funds to Maria for her discretionary use, meaning she can spend the money as she wishes to support the program and meet the critical needs of people she serves. As with all PVF funding, Maria is not required to submit a proposal for funding but she does report to us how the money was used. In the case of emergency assistance, Maria's logs on how funds are used are a depiction of poverty in our midst.
We are grateful to our donors who make our funding to programs like Maria's possible. If a donor would like a field trip to the Day Worker Center, we would be pleased to conduct one.
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