“My wife and son were in FIT (Family Infant Toddler) and ¡QUE CUTE! programs at Las Cumbres. My family was assisted greatly from those programs. Las Cumbres as an agency won my trust for the help provided with my family. Having such a great experience with Las Cumbres stuck with my family so much, my wife joined Las Cumbres Community Services as a Home Visitor in Confident Parenting. Shortly after she joined she told me about a program that assisted migrants and was in need of Spanish speaking Family Navigators. A majority of my work experience was with machines and not people but that wasn’t going to stop me. My experiences teaching children in church taught me that working with people is work that comes from the heart. My parents and brother are far away and my wife and kids are the closest family I have. With this position, I am able to connect with families who share my culture and have experienced leaving family and their home country. I am an Immigrant, I am Mexican, Latino, a foreigner. People arrive in the United States with nothing. Without money, without a house, without food, without a car, without knowing the opportunities that this country can offer you. I connect them with services and knowledge to get them on their feet. Personally, I would have liked to have a Family Navigator to help me settle in the United States, someone to help me with the language barrier.
I have a passion for helping people through Las Cumbres. An agency through which my family benefited. Nothing is more satisfying than being able to help someone in need.”
Raisi Yañez is a Family Navigator for the Santuario del Corazón Program.
Funding for Santuario de Corazon is provided by the New Mexico Department of Health and through a selection of private foundation grants from the Robert T. Keeler Foundation; Doris Goodwin Walbridge Foundation; and the Keith Obermaier Family Fund, a Donor Advised Fund of Renaissance Charitable Foundation.