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Girasoles En Marcha was founded by my daughter Celeste, who was fifteen years old at the time. I was a single mother figuring out my place in the world and reconnecting with my indigenous ancestry which was obscured from me to protect me from further oppression. I returned to college when my daughter was a teen. In college, I learned about our history, which was denied to us in school textbooks. I would also teach it to my teen. We were both discovering our place in this world without a community in which we could belong and nurture our inner child. Celeste came up with the idea to start a community for BIPOC girls who were also like us and did not have access to the opportunity to connect with their ancestral roots, inner niña, and extra-curricular workshops due to a lack of funds.
Girasoles began with this intention in 2015. My teenager of Indigenous ancestry began knocking on many closed doors and believing in the possibility of her miracle community. She invited her friends to volunteer and be big sisters to 5 little girls; her sister and 4 little cousins who were all about 6 years old at the time. She worked so hard to network and find people who would believe in her mission. In 2017, I joined her to help with curriculum planning and tutoring.
Fast forward to now, Girasoles has been running on community wheels, parent donations, generous supporters, and partners. All money that has been received for the past 7 years has gone back to fund the workshops and any materials needed for the girls and to pay some workshop hosts, whether it be gas money, food, or fees for their workshops. Nobody that has worked for the core team of Girasoles has received payment in the past seven years, it has all been volunteer heart work. The Girasoles have also not been charged for any workshop and priority has always been given to families that come from underserved neighborhoods or demonstrated need.
The pandemic hit our household hard and our family quickly became low-income- almost poverty status. This also hurt Girasoles because my husband and I were paying for the operation costs. After all, the donations only helped to pay for workshops, materials, transportation, and books.
Nevertheless, we continued because we realized the need was very high and we were not only getting participants from our community of South LA, but from East LA, Whittier, Sylmar, Compton, Torrance, West Covina, Norwalk, Montebello and even San Leandro,and Fresno. Parents/Guardians would drive to South LA from everywhere! Those that lived far, were participating through zoom when we had available volunteers to host the zoom. Behind the scenes, the challenge and fight to keep Girasoles going were emotionally exhausting due to our financial situation.
Girasoles En Marcha is registered with the State of California as a domestic non-profit, but it is running as a grassroots. We have tried twice to get the 501c3 status with no luck and losing even more money in the process. Every year doing taxes for GEM costs $200.00. The Founder Celeste graduated in May from UC Berkeley and had to relocate to The Bay for work purposes and now serves as a Senior Advisor for GEM and left me as the Executive Director and Maite as Director of Operations. Maite and I wish to carry on with the responsibility of moving GEM forward to continue its mission:
To empower and encourage self-identifying girls of color to co-create a community that honors and preserves all Latin American cultural identities and fosters life-long learning, diversity, and inclusion while leading in social justice.
Maite and I both are women of direct indigenous ancestry from the Zapotec, Maya, Quechua, and Inca people who strongly believe in the power of community and collective healing.
My family and I continue to be low income and during the pandemic, I returned to school to obtain my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy to become a Therapist
and to be able to include a mental health component in Girasoles En Marcha. Maite is also fostering her leadership growth, mental wellness and interpersonal skills, so we can
improve future development outcomes if Girasoles were to continue.
Financially, we cannot keep Girasoles going as the operations costs are beyond our means. This is our last intent to keep Girasoles running on community wheels and ask for help.
The need and desire are there, but financially we are unable to keep it going.
The target goal will cover the 2023 operation costs and help us file the 2022 taxes for Girasoles En Marcha. Any extra money will continue to go for workshops and find someone that can help us obtain a 501c3 status.
Any help would be appreciated.