The organization, First3Years, celebrated the early experiences that shape lifelong potential for all babies with a state-wide event, Baby Day on February 15. The day was created to promote bonding and delight between caregivers and children. It celebrated the extraordinary period of growth and development infants and toddlers experience within their first three years of life.

Santa Maria’s Prevention and Intervention staff participated in two different cities, Baytown and Houston. The Baby Day event in Baytown was held at the Baytown Community Center and the event in Houston was held at The Health Museum. At both events, SMH staff and other community agencies led activities that engaged the infants in creative play and learning. The activities included; both infant and toddler yoga, infant CPR, story time (led by Santa Maria), mindfulness and breathing exercises, and curated art projects.  It was delightful to see how “simple” activities like playing with bubbles, playing with balls of different sizes, colors and textures  excited and engaged infants and toddlers.   This annual celebration is growing across the country and we were proud to be part of the festivities!

Strengthening Families… Expanding Prevention Services in our Community

We are excited to announce the award of a Texas Health and Human Services Commissions grant, Strengthening Families Program (SFP) that began at the first of September and will be in place for a full five year cycle.  Sites for the program include selected elementary and middle school campuses in Houston ISD, Spring Branch ISD, Spring ISD and Aldine ISD.  Families are referred by counselors and Communities in Schools staff.  They are also recruited at school events like Open House Night, Coffee with the Principal and school fairs. The aim is to strengthen family resiliency skills at a crucial time of development for young adolescents.

SFP offers sessions for six to ten families per group over a ten week session at each site.  The sessions are held during the school year and in the summers at community center sites. Participating children and their parents meet separately for an hour, have a break and snack time together and then reassemble for a combined group of children and adults for an additional hour.  These groups are led by two separate facilitators. The topics change from week to week and include research and skill -based lessons: the daily practice of complimenting the good and elimination of harsh criticism; making family rules and reward systems for good behavior; creating family traditions, learning about and engaging in social services available in the community; learning how drugs and alcohol hijack the brain; problem solving through win-win negotiations and pre-problem solving to stay out of trouble and many other beneficial family techniques.  The vocabulary used is age appropriate and the overall intention is to build resiliency in children and families enabling them to reach their full potential, one of Santa Maria’s overriding goals.

We are pleased to introduce our staff recently hired to lead SFP. Please help us welcome Luz Daris Mosquera who holds a Bachelor’s in Social Work and a Master’s of Science in Community Education and Development and Luz Nelly Barrera with her Bachelor’s in Social Work. They serve as our facilitators and program leads.  Both Ms. Mosquera and Ms. Barrera came to us after distinguished service at Escape Family Resource.  They work directly with Teresa Garcia, Senior Director of Intervention and Prevention Services, expanding the wide array prevention services we offer.

With children facing the introduction of substance experimentation as early as elementary school, this researched-based program goes a long way to build the resiliency of families in many parts of our community.  It is the face of RecovHERy.

Twitter For Good Elevates Houston

One Day -13,000 Volunteer Hours

Last week the city of Houston welcomed about 4,400 Twitter employees (Tweeps) from 35 of their different global offices. They gathered in Houston for one of their “Twitter For Good” staff meetings. They chose to come to Houston because of the resiliency Houstonians showed after Hurricane Harvey.

Together these two groups combined contributed close to 400 volunteer hours to Santa Maria!

Please follow Santa Maria on Twitter, and all other social media platforms that you may be part of. We are also on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

With the Community Quarterback awards, the Houston Texans and BHP recognize outstanding volunteers from local United Way agencies working to make Houston a better place. On December 8^th, during the Texans vs. Broncos football game, these awards were presented to ten volunteers from different nonprofit organizations around our city.

Robert “Mac” McMillan a Santa Maria (SM) volunteer was one of the nine finalists and was awarded a $5,000 donation to benefit our organization. This is the third year in a row that one outstanding volunteer from SM, has received this award.

Mac has volunteered at SM for over 17 years and since then, he has contributed to more than 9,000 volunteer hours to our organization. His work started when he joined the SM Board of Directors in 2002. Then, in 2005, Mac joined the SM Foundation Board, where he was also elected treasurer. Today, he still holds this position and has been responsible for keeping the SMF accounting books for 14 years.

In 2009, he retired from his full-time job at the Houston Chronicle and immediately began his volunteer work as in-house auditor/CPA for our Accounting and Finance Department. Mac has since volunteered an amazing average of 70-80 hours per month!

Because of his extensive previous public audit and accounting experience and knowledge, Mac has been an outstanding volunteer who takes on many different accounting tasks with joy. His input ranges from intense accounting strategy discussions to filing paid invoices. “He has been my sounding board for many years” Barbara Page, CFO says. “We get multiple fiscal audits a year, and Mac plays a big role in helping us be audit-ready at all times”.

We are so thankful for his nearly two decades of commitment to Santa Maria and for his constant support and contribution to the success of our organization. Please join us in congratulating Mac upon receipt of this is well-deserved recognition.

Another Santa Maria honoree includes the 2018 BHP Community Quarterback Award finalist Kathy Griffin-Grinan, who serves as Human Trafficking Director for Harris County Constable Precinct One.  In 2017, Lisa Carpenter, a Santa Maria alumna and one of our Board members was also recognized with this award!  We are certainly fielding a team of winners!  Congratulations one and all!

Download 2019 Fall/Winter Newsletter

We could not be more grateful to Exxon Mobil for partnering with Santa Maria and United Way of Greater Houston for the two amazing Day of Caring events that took place at our Bonita campus on September 5th and at our Jacquelyn campus on October 25^th.

The first group consisted of 90 volunteers from the Global Lubes group.  The main project was to build a beautiful, large deck for our playground area. This effort took a lot of preparation. Our staff met with their lead team coordinator, Vivian Winston, weeks in advance of the Day of Caring to coordinate all the details and prep work. Three other volunteers, Paul Davis, Paul Graber and Jeff Howard visited our campus the day before bringing all the equipment to drill and complete the prep work required for our deck to be built the next day. In addition to this laborious project, other teams of volunteers tackled landscape improvements on all the main green areas and to painted two rooms, a bathroom and kitchenette in the residences of the Women with Children Program (WWC). One additional team of volunteers sorted clothing donations for nearly three hours. In total, this group of 90 Exxon volunteers contributed to more than 780 volunteer hours and about $6,000 worth of supplies. We would especially like to recognize Terry Neal, Global Lubes Operations Manager for leading by example and working alongside his team to make Santa Maria Bonita House a more attractive and functional home for clients and staff to enjoy.

The second group consisted of 106 volunteers from the Procurement Department. Their main project was to provide outdoor furniture for our garden and hallways, since we had a shortage of seating areas at our Jacquelyn House. The day started early and it was cold and rainy, but the weather did not stop this incredible group. They started working at 8 am on five different projects: carpentry, painting, landscaping, holiday decorating and cleaning. The heavy cleaning took place mainly in the sheds and with the pressure washing of the courtyard. The decorating was inspired by the fall and Halloween season.  Their cheery decorations were spread throughout the reception area and big group room. The landscaping effort was spread throughout the green areas in our courtyard and back patio. Other teams worked on painting a few common rooms and offices. The biggest team focused on carpentry.  Doug Fisher, did an outstanding job leading this team. For two months prior to the group event, he worked in his spare time, after work and on the weekends, to precut and prepare all the wood necessary so outdoor furniture could be assembled at our campus in just one day! They were able to provide us with twelve outdoor benches, six side tables and six picnic tables. The carpentry team also built a sturdy and high-quality gate around the trashcans. This addition made a positive impact on the appearance of our campus.

There were so many areas under construction and painting the staff planned a day off campus for our clients.  We appreciate City Council Member, David Robinson and his office staff for providing tickets for an outing to the Houston Zoo.  These tickets made a special day for our inpatient clients who returned home to a much improved and beautiful campus.

It’s been so wonderful to have such talented and committed volunteers at Santa Maria. We are truly grateful for all the hard work and dedication they put towards upgrading our facilities. Our clients, women and children are getting to enjoy the benefits of their hard work every single day. Our sincere appreciation!

We were happy to host our community partners from University of Houston Downtown on Wednesday October 28, 2019; Jonhatan Schwartz, Dean of College of Public Services, Ashley Blackburn and Judith Harris from the Criminal Justice Faculty.

We are honored of the collaboration we have with UH Downtown since 2015. We are proud to join our efforts to inspire a brighter future for treatment, response and success. We look forward to continuing to share our strengths and expertise to building on to our current partnership.

On September 13, a group of 30 volunteers from DOW Chemical, visited Santa Maria -Bonita House for a Day of Caring.

This group of volunteers were visiting Houston to attend the company’s annual Employee Resource Group (ERG) conference called “EMERGE”. This conference brings together more than 400 employees from 30 countries and diverse job roles, functions and businesses in Houston, Texas.

Through a partnership with Volunteer Houston, DOW Chemical employees, visited a total of nine local non profit organizations for a day of service projects throughout Houston. They selected Santa Maria based on our passion to serve the marginalized and  at risk women and children. The project performed at our main campus consisted on painting the exterior wrought iron perimeter fence.

Thank you Volunteer Houston and DOW Chemical for your support to Santa Maria and the community in recovery!

On September 5^th we hosted a large group of volunteers from ExxonMobil at our Corporate Offices. This amazing group of people worked very hard to build a beautiful deck in our playground area. Make sure you look at the photos at the bottom of this article. They also did a great job beautifying our campus by landscaping all the main green areas. Two rooms were painted, one of them is the group room, bathroom and kitchenet of WWC (Women With Children) Residential program. A few volunteers even helped to sort clothing donations for about 3 hours. We are very happy and grateful for this Day of Caring from ExxonMobil. Altogether, they contributed to more than 780 volunteer hours and about $6,000 worth of supplies on these projects. We are truly honored to have them come serve the community in Recovery. Special thanks to Vivian Winston for all the communications and prep work done that made this project possible. Shout-out to Terry Neal, Global Lubes Operation Manager for leading with example and working alongside all his team to make Santa Maria a nicer looking place for staff and clients to enjoy!

Our clients, women and children will get to enjoy the benefits of your hard work every single day. Our sincere appreciation!

We are honored to be one of the non-profit organizations to be awarded a grant from The Indo-American Charity Foundation (IACF). The IACF is a non-profit organization that helps the under-privileged and needy with monetary contributions and volunteer work with established and emerging non-profit organizations in the Greater Houston Area. We feel very fortunate to partner with them and count with their support!