We create change
through radical love.
Central Valley Empowerment Alliance aims to address economic and educational inequity, advocate for affordable housing and empower underserved communities in the Central Valley.
In Loving Memory of Ronaldo Manaay
“Ronaldo Manaay is a disabled farmworker and welder who suffers from advanced diabetes. He is on dialysis awaiting a liver transplant. “I’m scared,” he says. “I don’t know how long I’ll live.”- David Bacon. Ill Harvest Link Here
What We Do
Central Valley Empowerment Alliance empowers youth and rural communities to become leaders, advocates, and catalysts for change.
Our Strategies
Empowerment
We empower communities to use their voice to create change. Uplifting the youth to become leaders is also central to building equity.
Health
We provide free health resources to underserved communities. Monthly food banks are used to disburse healthy groceries to people in need.
Affordable Housing
We advocate for housing in low-income communities, keeping families and entire support systems together for the betterment of generations to come.
Our Programs
LUPE'S Promise Youth Leadership
We promote youth leadership by developing their skills through community engagement and creating a safe place for the youth to be accepted as they are.
Larry Itliong Resource Center
We provide a safe space for the community to assemble as needed as well as a place for youth to study for their future, this judgement free building helps future leaders grow.
El Mercado
We provide community food banks to help feed local communities as well as health initiatives alongside street medicine. This monthly effort has helped keep communities strong and vitalized.
“Our life’s journey is guided by the choices we make and directed by the choices we don’t.”
— Arturo Rodriguez Leon
Meet The Team
Mari Perez-Ruiz, Executive Director
Arturo Rodriguez, Political/Organizing Director
Samira Malla, Youth Organizer
Josh Mapallo, Community Development Organizer
Silvia Almanza, Volunteer Coordinator
Rudy Flores, Housing Organizer
Aide Hernandez, Rural Health Development Community Organizer
Jorge Gutierrez, Civic Engagement Organizer
The Lacambacal family. From left, Gloria, Reynaldo, Giyahna, Reginaldo, Eddie and Eufronio. In front, Lhiann and Jenika Gwen
Gloria Lacambacal.
The Lacambacal family is a family of Poplar Filipinos. Giyahna fixes the hair of Jenika Gwen while she eats grapes just brought back from work.
Reginaldo Lacambacal and his wife Gloria came from the Philippines 20 years ago, after his father petitioned for him. They’ve worked in the fields all those years. During the coronavirus crisis Reginaldo wears a mask around his neck
Baby Lhiann Lacambacal with her grandparents Reginaldo and Gloria.
Leaving the camps brought huge changes for the Filipinos. It made them town residents and helped end their isolation. Itliong himself ran for Delano City Council two years after the strike started, calling for raising farm wages.
Very little privacy in a bathroom of an abandoned San Joaquin River Delta labor camp
Larry Itliong. (Photo by Bob Fitch, courtesy of the Bob Fitch Archives, Special Collections, Stanford University.) This Picture also hang in the meeting hall of the Larry Itliong Resource Center. (A propgram of CVEA)
Victor Tabino takes bunches from the tubs, bags and packs them into boxes.
Teresita Mateo came from Laoag, in Ilocos Norte.
Robinson Cadiz, another immigrant from Laoag, picks bad grapes out of the bunch.
Adelina Asuncion arrived from Laoag in 1977.
A vineyard in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Annie Domingo came from Laoag, in Ilocos Norte province of the Philippines, 43 years ago.
Reginaldo Lacambacal talks with Arturo Rodriguez and Mari Pérez-Ruíz, organizers from the Larry Itliong Resource Center.
You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
- Cesar Chavez
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@CVEmpowerment
Donate to the movement
Invest in empowering our future.
Invest in uplifting and empowering our Central Valley Rural Communities through education, health, and leadership.
Visit us
Main Office:
Poplar
14665 Rd 192
Poplar, CA 93257
Lamont
9009 Weedpatch Hwy
Suite D
Lamont, CA 93241
Hours
Monday–Friday
10am–6pm
Phone
(559) 854-7251
Madera
1901 Howard Road
Suite F
Madera, CA 93637