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Three community members joined the San Benito Leadership Institute’s nine-month program to enhance their professional skills, but say they gained much more, including new relationships, more self confidence and a sense of being part of a larger community.
“I’ve gained a little group of family, a group of friends with the same mission, which is to better our community,” participant Claudia Ceja said, “and knowing what is out there and how we can be a voice for our community.”
Like Ceja, Mishel Thomas and Andres Rodriguez said they created a bond with their group. Thomas said she didn’t grow up in as supportive an environment as the Leadership Institute provides.
“You go into your adulthood just not having that true confidence in yourself,” she said. “I’ve gained quite a bit of confidence from the program.”
Rodriguez, a senior field representative for 29th District Assemblyman Robert Rivas, said he benefited personally and professionally from meeting other local leaders in various industries.
“You really build those relationships that you can just call on to make sure that you provide resources to your own folks,” he said. “People can reach out to me and I help them and then I reach out to people from my cohort and they help me.”
Ceja and Thomas said another benefit was learning about programs and organizations in the community that they were previously unfamiliar with.
Thomas, clinic operations manager for Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, said she didn’t know about Health Projects Center, a nonprofit that supports elders. She said she is looking at possibly collaborating with the organization.
“I feel like so often there’s things in the county, even though we are in the community and even though we are a hospital, we don’t always know about,” she said.
Ceja, a Graniterock sales representative whose goal is to join a local nonprofit board, said she learned about programs such as Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of San Benito County, United for San Benito and Emmaus House.
“Those are just really big things that are in our community,” she said. “As servants, we should start educating part of our community on all the different programs they have available to them.”
Rodriguez, Thomas and Ceja said the Leadership Institute program provides tools for professional and personal development.
“Not that I wasn’t expecting to make friends,” Rodriguez said, “but I wasn’t expecting to really learn so much from other folks and especially about their personal lives.”
The program includes monthly, full-day sessions with discussions ranging from local issues to working on developing conflict awareness skills.
“The program is a great tool for people that want to make a difference,” Ceja said. “That want to educate themselves, that want to promote growth and unity within their community.”
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