Dee's Community Leadership

Dee Marie Chavez is an incredible community health leader.  Beginning in 2013 I had the opportunity to meet Dee and learn from her story of resiliency, love, and endless care for the community of people and place that she calls home.  Together we developed a life history interview project with a community of people experiencing homelessness along the Sacramento River.  These interviews and Dee's example of selfless and tireless care for others opened a window into the health promotion activities of a unique group of people.   Even while experiencing homelessness this community shared stories and showed direct examples of how they care for each other in the midst of seemingly insurmountable structural forces negatively affecting health and wellbeing.  Ultimately, the life history interviews led to long term relationships that helped to create community health events and health promotion that were driven by community leaders.  In the realm of healthcare for people experiencing homelessness, this approach of building from stories to identify community leaders is unique .  
Dee and I will be sharing our work at a lecture at the International Street Medicine Symposium in Pittsburgh in October.  We're so excited to share our work and meet other street medicine programs.  
We need to raise funds for Dee's lodging and conference costs for her time in Pittsburgh.  This important opportunity will allow others to learn from and carry forward the important goal of deep listening and collaborative health action with people experiencing homelessness.  Please donate or give Dee (and her community) a message of support on the message board.
Thank you!