“We need 100 more Lilias. She is a force to be reckoned with.”
Andrew Feil, Executive Director of Every Neighborhood Partnership
Lilia Becerril never imagined starting her own organization.
She held a deep passion for serving her community, but her inability to speak English felt like an insurmountable barrier.
Living in a community with the highest concentration of poverty in California, lower life expectancies, and some of the greatest economic and racial disparities in the United States, Lilia knew there was a great need for change. For 29 years, Lilia worked as a local volunteer, advocating for and providing resources to help Fresno residents to live healthier and empowered lives.
In 2018, two local leaders, Artie Padilla and Raúl Z. Moreno, assured Lilia she had the experience, the team, and the leadership to start her own organization. They encouraged her to not allow language to be a barrier and connected her with the support of other local nonprofits, including Every Neighborhood Partnership.
The trust these community leaders had in Lilia gave her the confidence to move forward. In June of 2022, after Lilia had been serving her community faithfully for almost three decades as a volunteer, Familias en Acción became an official nonprofit organization.
Familias en Acción’s Mission
The mission of Familias en Acción is to empower community members to feel dignified and use their own voices to transform their neighborhoods. Through the work Familias en Acción is doing, Lilia’s hope is for children in every part of Fresno to walk in neighborhoods marked by beauty and safety.
Currently, Familias en Acción is focusing efforts in the Winchell and Jackson neighborhoods. Members have organized beautification days, planted trees, and worked to improve poor air quality. The organization has taken community members to city council meetings to advocate for some of these changes. Familias en Acción has also visited the State Capitol to speak with senators and assemblymen about the support community members need to better their quality of life.
ENP & Familias en Acción’s Partnership
Since January 2022, Christian Gonzalez, Every Neighborhood Partnership’s Community Engagement Specialist, has been meeting with Lilia every week. In between their weekly meetings, Lilia and Christian discuss ways to navigate leadership struggles and the logistics of running a nonprofit organization over the phone.
“ENP is helping with back-end administrative work like budget development and funding procurement,” says Christian, “We are also providing leadership development to support the work Lilia is already doing.”
Through the Fresno DRIVE Initiative, ENP staff members like Christian work as “coaches” with 6 developing organizations, including Familias en Acción. The role of a coach is to encourage, help cast vision, develop a strategic plan, and serve as an intermediary between the organization and vital resources.
Supporting leaders like Lilia and organizations such as Familias en Acción is a vital part of Every Neighborhood Partnership’s mission.
“We’re an asset-based organization, which means we believe local leaders have answers to the problems in their own communities,” says Andrew Feil, ENP’s Executive Director. “We need 100 more Lilias. She is a force to be reckoned with. Lilia has the natural abilities, and she just needed organizational support. ENP is honored to do some behind-the-scenes work to help make her vision a reality.”
Familias en Acción is currently looking for a building to serve as a community center, build their team, and continue to grow to further their impact in the community. Stay updated on Familias en Acción’s activities by connecting with them on Facebook HERE.
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