Kensington Site Update: We’re Open!
We’re giving thanks to God as on Monday, September 30th we opened the doors of our new Kensington health center at 861 E. Allegheny Avenue! Our new Phoenix Cafe location on the health center’s first floor also opened that same day. More updates to come in our November eNews!
Voices of Esperanza: Cyndi Diaz
For Esperanza Health Center medical assistant Cyndi Diaz, who has been an Esperanza staff
member since 2008, every day presents a new opportunity to love and serve our patients. She
welcomes patients with a smile and an attitude that says, “I care!” Her natural ability to
connect with others at a professional, personal, and spiritual level is an amazing gift. Patients
often call Cyndi just to hear her voice or to ask her to pray for them, and Cyndi goes the extra mile to help a patient, especially our many uninsured patients. As Cyndi explained: “I did not grow up with my dad and when I began to develop a relationship with him as a young woman, he died two weeks later. I often think about what more I could have done for him. In my work at Esperanza Health Center, I love my dad through caring for my patients. I laugh and cry with them and we share life stories. Their energy—good or bad —gives me life and purpose every day.” She has been deeply impacted by the patients she serves and seeks to love them the way God loves them.
Cyndi is proud to be a member of the North Philadelphia community in which
she works, and often speaks about “keeping it real” with our patients so that they are motivated to improve their health. One of her more recent patients struggled with loneliness after learning of a diagnosis he had just received. Recognizing this, she connected the patient with a mentor to provide hope and encouragement.
Cyndi is very creative and takes initiative to make work flow more smoothly for everyone involved. For example, Cyndi mans the patient appointment schedule “like an air traffic controller,” as one of her colleagues put it, moving patients around so that those who come early can be seen, and freeing up the schedule for other patients. Cyndi was part of a committee tasked with evaluating and recommending work flow changes across all departments. She is also involved in many other ways at Esperanza, whether as our unofficial champion for World AIDS Day every December 1st, where she mobilizes the entire staff to
wear red (including red lipstick!), or by singing the National Anthem for a hotly-contested staff basketball game.
A Scripture passage that motivates Cyndi in her work at Esperanza is Romans
4:4-5: “If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-himto-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.” (Bible translation from The Message version). As Cyndi explained: “This verse to me is applicable literally to the job I do—but beyond that, it applies to all of us. Where we come up short, where our skills, abilities and talents are not sufficient, God comes in abundance to “make it happen”…to bring things into completeness. God makes us whole, even if things are not perfect or as we planned. He still makes, fulfills and meets us in our needs, which may very
well be beyond what we initially thought.”
New Health Promoters Class is Underway!
Our Fall 2019 Community Health
Promoters course has begun, with a
cohort of 12 participants. Last week, the
group made collages from magazines
depicting the question, “What is health?”
and discussed the four aspects of health:
physical, mental/emotional, relational, and
spiritual. They will continue over the next
two months with training on a range of
wellness and health topics. Said Kate
Kempf, a senior at Cairn University who is
serving as an intern with the Community
Health and Wellness Department: “The class has started out strong and
bonded quickly. They are an amazing, resilient cohort with a broad span of
life experiences and interests to bring to the table, as we study important
ideas and skills in dif erent aspects of health.”
Join the Esperanza Team!
We’re seeking qualified professional individuals to join our Esperanza Health Center team! Open positions are updated on a regular basis—please click the link below to learn more and to apply!