Noche Tropical: Mary's Center's Friends Celebrate 21 Years of Service!

It was a night to remember! There were nearly 250 of Mary's Center's friends and corporate sponsors. There were two distinguished members of Congress: Xavier Becerra and Eleanor Holmes Norton. And two members of the Obama administration. And as master of ceremonies: National Public Radio's Ray Suarez.

All kinds of good food, and wonderful live music.

These are just a few highlights of the spectacular 2009 Noche Tropical, Mary's Center's annual fundraising gala, held Thursday night, October 8th, at the beautiful Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC.

Keynote speaker at the event was Neera Tanden, senior advisor to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Ms. Tanden, who worked as Director of Domestic Policy for the Biden Presidential Campaign before joining the Obama administration, congratulated Mary's Center on 21 years of outstanding service to the medically-underserved populations of Washington, DC. She also spoke about the urgent need for health care reform in the U.S.Congressman Becerra, left, with Mary's Center President and CEO Maria Gomez and National Public Radio's Ray Suarez, MC for the gala

Also recognized at the gala was Ana Recio Harvey, the former President and CEO of the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Harvey recently was named head of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership. In that capacity, Ms. Harvey will work to promote women-owned businesses. In helping to empower women, Ms. Harvey advances a major priority of Mary's Center President and CEO Maria Gomez.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a long-time friend of Mary's Center, congratulated Mary's Center "for helping our city to grow and thrive economically while... simultaneously supporting our most vulnerable families and children." She echoed many when she noted that "in giving back, you are receiving. I applaud Mary’s Center and all of you here today for your efforts to improve the well-being of our families in DC and for helping every child in the District to have a chance to thrive and succeed."

Guests at the gala had a chance to view a wonderfully-inspiring video that displayed the many reasons that Mary's Center has to celebrate the past year, most notably, a visit from First Lady Michelle Obama in February 2009. Mrs. Obama used her visit to Mary's Center to focus on the need for all of us to "give back" to our communities.

Also addressing the crowd at Noche was teenager Akrem Muzemil, who talked to the crowd about how Mary's Center helped to steer his life in the right direction when he first arrived in the U.S. from Ethiopia five years ago.

Author Allison Silberberg, whose book, Visionanaries in our Midst features a profile of Mary's Center, was at Noche Tropical, too, signing books. On the dance floor was music man Verny Varela and his band, and there were lots of people dancing, including Maria!Mary's Center President and CEO Maria Gomez hits the dance floor at Noche Tropical!


An auction and dessert buffet ended the evening. The gala celebration left Mary's Center with one more year of rich memories!

Mary's Center Celebrates One Year at Silver Spring Site

A year after Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care opened its first Maryland location in Silver Spring, officials gathered to celebrate the Center's anniversary.

The Center was praised for providing critically-needed health care, education and social services to more than 2,000 residents in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.

“We feel very proud to commemorate our first anniversary at this location,” said Maria Gomez, Mary’s Center’s President and CEO. “The increased volume of residents from Montgomery County and Prince George’s County who are coming for services to our Center is a live testimony to the urgent need for broader health care reform in this country. As President Obama has said repeatedly, we Americans are desperate for health care reform. We need a system that will serve the millions of families who lack access to adequate health care and social services in this country.”

A year ago, Mary’s Center’s 3,600-square-foot primary care center, located at 8709 Flower Ave. in the Long Branch area of Silver Spring, became the first federally-qualified health care center in Montgomery County. The Flower Ave. center offers a full range of much-needed services to underserved communities in the region, regardless of ability to pay.

”Our Maryland facility extends Mary’s Center’s 20-year experience to residents in Maryland who desperately need quality and culturally-appropriate services,” says Dr. Mark Fracasso, Mary’s Center’s Vice President of Medicine. “We’ve also established vital partnerships with Montgomery County agencies and local organizations, as well as with the Washington Adventist Hospital. These alliances have enabled us to meet the most urgent needs of our clients.”


The Maryland heath center has a multidisciplinary health-care team providing women's services, including obstetrical and gynecological care, as well as pediatric, adolescent, and adult health services. The center also offers a broad range of social services, counseling, and health education programs to its clients.

"Mary's Center has been a wonderful safety net for our most vulnerable residents in Montgomery County,” said Uma Ahluwalia, Director of Montgomery County’s Department of Health and Human Services. “We look forward to continuing this partnership in addressing health care and the need for social services that produce positive health outcomes for our residents in the Long Branch community and the county at large."

The one-year anniversary featured numerous local and state lawmakers, public health officials, and other supporters of Mary’s Center.

"Mary's Mary's How Does Your Garden Grow?"

Thanks to a generous donation of perennial garden plants by the Garden District, a DC indoor and outdoor plant store located on 14th Avenue, Mary's Center now has a wonderful new garden! Come by and walk the flagstone path through the roses and back to the big old peach tree.

Or take a few minutes -- or your lunch break -- to rest on one of the lovely wooden benches.

Sit and enjoy all the new life growing up around you.

You will see dozens of new spring plants, including hosta, geraniums, lilacs, forsythia, red grasses, delphinium and black-eyed susans. Not all of these plants are in bloom at this season, but they will come back year after year showcasing their colorful spring and summer finery.

Pictured here is little Isabel holding an umbrella during one of our many recent rainstorms. Mary's Center is good at growing adorable little chidren, that's for sure!

A BIG THANKS to the Garden District for helping to give the entrance to Mary's Center a fresh green look!

Mary's Center Hosts Make-Up Marathon!

More than 100 women turned out in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Wednesday evening, May 27th for a social event to benefit Mary's Center. Supplying the make-up talent for the women attending was a very talented crew from Saks Fifth Avenue. The event, intended to raise awareness about Mary's Center's mission and need for resources, was by all accounts great fun and a big success. (Even Mary's Center's President and CEO Maria Gomez had her make-up done.)

Pictured here, from left to right, are the three chairs of the host committee: Margie Harlem, Marla Garchik, and Hanita Schrieber (who is also on Mary's Center's Board of Directors and the Chair of the Center's philanthropic board), then Mary's Center's President and CEO Maria Gomez, and the Chairperson of the Board, Mary MacPherson.

Stimulus legislation is helping Mary's Center!!

Mary's Center is already putting to work the federal government's stimulus money that is aimed at helping shore up cities across the nation.

Over the next two years, Mary's Center will receive $340,551 from the stimulus program. A total of $1.7 million has been allocated to health clinics in the District that serve the growing number of individuals who need health care but have no money or insurance to pay for it. Mary's Center is using the first of the monies to bring back into service its vitally-important mobile dental clinic, which had to be closed six months ago for lack of funds. Dental service is provided primarily to children and pregnant women. Maria Gomez, President and CEO of Mary's Center, said that pregnant women are at higher risk of giving birth prematurely. They can also suffer more serious complications, if oral infections are not detected and treated properly.

Called the Mama & Baby Bus, the mobile clinic is equipped with a dental chair and a new X-ray machine, making it easier for patients because they won’t need to travel to a hospital or a radiology center to get their films done.

At this point, the mobile bus is available in DC four days a week. The stimulus money is also helping to pay the salary of a new dentist, Dr. Oluwole Ajagbe, as well as his assistant and a dental hygienist.

Gomez noted that the stimulus grant became available on extremely short notice and that the grant-writing effort demanded a very quick turnaround (less than two months.) The process of applying for grants is normally much more drawn out. However, in these very tough economic times, Gomez said that Mary's Center could demonstrate a clear and urgent need for health services, as more and more people are losing jobs and their insurance.

Mary's Center plans to add three more dental chairs to its new health clinic being built in Ward 4.

MARY'S CENTER RECEIVES $100,000 FROM WORLD BANK!

Great news! Mary’s Center has just received a very generous grant of $100,000 from the World Bank Community Connections Fund. The grant money – which will be used to make much-needed improvements in Mary’s Center’s information technology infrastructure – will be matched by the DC Primary Care Association.

With this support, clinicians at Mary’s Center will have better access to electronic medical records, and administrative staff will be able to work more efficiently. The IT staff at Mary’s Center will spend less time troubleshooting problems with computer systems.

“This grant is such a blessing,” said Maria Gomez, President and CEO of Mary’s Center, “We are thrilled and so thankful. On behalf of the clients, staff, and Board of Directors at Mary’s Center, we extend our deepest gratitude to the World Bank and its employees. We are tremendously grateful for this support of Mary's Center.

The World Bank Community Connections Fund is a non-profit arm of the World Bank Group. According to Viki Betancourt, manager of outreach for fund, the $100,000 comes from undesignated employee contributions, as well as a 100% corporate match for these undesignated donations. (Viki Betancourt, a long-time Mary’s Center supporter, is pictured here on the left with her daughter, Christina Johnson, (right) and holding her granddaughter, baby Vivian. Maria Gomez is in the center.)

The gift comes at a critical time for Mary’s Center. With the U.S. economy in shambles, and unemployment rising, patients at Mary’s Center are struggling harder than ever to deal with the economic downturn.

“The need for our culturally-competent services is growing,” noted Ms. Gomez. “By building our administrative capacity, Mary’s Center will be well-equipped to meet the ever-increasing needs of the District’s most vulnerable residents.”

Thank you President and Mrs. Obama for Celebrating Cinco de Mayo!!

Dear President and Mrs. Obama, I would like to thank you both for inviting me and so many other members of the Latino community to the White House this week, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in a very special way. What a delightful and meaningful event this was, not only for those of Mexican descent, but for all of us Latinos present. We were just thrilled to have this opportunity to spend this intimate time with you both, as well as with Vice President Biden and other officials.

Your warmth and sincerity and your relaxed, informal manner made me feel so welcome, and so comfortable. As a Latina woman, who is both a mother and health professional, I have great hopes for this nation, my second home country. I know that we can do great things, and that you, President Obama, stand ready to lead us toward them.



Indeed, you have already begun. The passage of SCHIP – expanding health care to children, was an important first step. Mrs. Obama, your visits to the DC neighborhoods, and your establishment of the White House community garden, have made the White House feel like our house. As we say in Spanish: mi casa es tu casa. Truly, we all feel so welcome and so inspired and invigorated to work with and for you both. We especially look forward to supporting your efforts to pass a major health care reform bill, and to working with Health Care for America Now, a group that includes many of us from so many regions of the U.S. Our priority, like yours, is to ensure that all Americans are insured, and afforded quality health care.


In your 100 first days, Mr. President, you have accomplished more than others have done in their entire terms. Who would have thought that health care reform, the war, the economy and immigration reform would compete with new crises like the flu, a measles outbreak, and even, pirates attacking American ships? But your determination and your genuine concern for our welfare assures us that we as Americans can and will overcome all the obstacles that confront us. We are there not only to “Kumbaya” with you. We are there by your side, and at your back, determined to support your hardworking and committed staff to do whatever it takes to bring about the changes we need in this nation.



On behalf of the entire Latino community, I say, “Muchas gracias!” Thanks for being the inspirational President that you are, and the force of power that unites the multicultural quilt that inhabits our Washington metropolitan area. With great respect and gratitude,

Maria Gomez
President and CEO Mary’s Center for Maternal & Child Care

Here Comes Mary's Center New Building!

If you live in Ward 4 in Washington, D.C., there is exciting news in store! Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care has announced plans to launch construction of a new building in Ward 4 to meet the needs of medically-underserved residents in that District. The new building, which is expected to be complete by the Fall of 2010, will replace the existing structure at 3910 Georgia Avenue, NW.

Early in May, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty attended the demolition of the old structure on Georgia Avenue. The Mayor praised Mary’s Center for its work and said the new building will help the health center expand its vitally-important mission providing neighborhood health care. “I am pleased to announce that Mary’s Center will have a new home in this neighborhood to continue doing their fantastic work in meeting critical needs such as HIV testing, teen pregnancy issues and health care needs,” said Mayor Fenty.

The 28,000 square-foot site will be part of an affordable housing project that includes 130 apartments for low-income families. A total of 130,000 square feet is planned. Mary’s Center will occupy the first floor of the new building. “We are very excited about this new building,” said Maria Gomez, President and CEO of Mary’s Center. “It will give us more efficient space in order to serve patients and it will enable us to expand our dental care services and to increase our primary health care capacity to this medically-underserved area.”

A $7.5 million grant from DCPCA will provide Mary’s Center with the initial funding to start construction. The total cost of the project is estimated at between $15 and $16 million. The project developer is Jair Lynch & Associates. (Note: Pictured in the photo above are Sharon Baskerville, DC Primary Care Association Executive Director; Mary's Center President and CEO Maria Gomez; Council Women for DC Ward 4, Muriel Bowser; DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and Jair Lynch, President and CEO of Jair Lynch Development Partners.)