If Rev. Wendy Taylor is the spiritual mother who gave birth to Puente, Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage are its fairy godparents.

The couple moved to La Honda in 1989 without suspecting that they would eventually help form the nucleus of social services on the South Coast. At least until they started volunteering with Puente – and saw how their Mexican neighbors lived.

“I was absolutely appalled by the lack of basic services that I took for granted, coming from Palo Alto – the lack of health care and transportation, among other things,” says Young-Holt.

In 1997, Young-Holt, with her husband’s support, was among a small group of locals who met to figure out how they could solve the most intractable problems on the South Coast. Their goal was to leverage county services and private funds to address the needs of Pescadero’s least fortunate residents. Eventually, the group became known as the South Coast Collaborative.

The newly funded services included mental health for the local schools; safety net services; English Language Learning classes; expanded and new preschool services at Pescadero Elementary and La Honda Elementary Schools; a new south coast transportation system, SamCoast;  and bringing the County’s mobile health van to La Honda. All of these services were provided under the auspices of a spinoff called North Street Community Resource Center, which formally merged with Puente on April 1, 2007.

Today, Sandage and Young-Holt are monthly sustaining Puente donors. Young-Holt is Vice Chair of the Puente Board of Directors. Sandage serves weekly meals at La Sala, where he enjoys chatting in Spanish with the farm workers who come for a hot meal – a role he has played since La Sala began.

“They’re some of the most honorable people I know,” Sandage says. “They work really hard and they’re always careful to consider your feelings.”

Both are longtime parishioners of Pescadero Community Church, the home base of La Sala and the locus of the original Puente Ministry, founded in 1998 by Rev. Wendy Taylor.

Of all the work they’ve done on behalf of South Coast neighbors – the meals they’ve served, the money they’ve raised, the classes they’ve taught – Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage say the most rewarding by far experience has been watching Puente transform people’s lives.

For example, Sandage really values his role as a volunteer mentor in Puente’s citizenship education program, which involves basic English instruction as well as helping people pass their U.S. citizenship test.

“That’s really enjoyable because it’s a one-on-one relationship. You really make a friend.”

Sandage credits Puente’s Zumba dance classes with uniting locals from white and Latino backgrounds in the name of fun and fitness.

“When we first got here that never could have happened, because everybody was afraid to come out of their homes,” he says.

Young-Holt praises Puente’s youth program, which was founded back in 2007, for “giving the kids some real purpose. I’m watching more and more kids go off to college who might not have gone off to college before.”

Because of Young-Holt’s vision, South Coast neighbors contribute funds each year to Puente’s Youth Bridges Awards – scholarships that are provided to each and every youth that has worked at Puente high school years.

As the South Coast continues to change – culturally, economically and demographically – Puente’s ability to adapt and respond to the needs of residents owes much to the powerful support of its original fairy godparents.

It’s wonderful when an organization succeeds – but there is a special kind of parental pride that comes from having been there from the beginning and witnessed its first steps in the world.

That is how Rob Johnson and Lary Lawson feel about Puente. The longtime Pescadero residents have been volunteers from the earliest days of the Puente Ministry, founded in the back of the Pescadero Community Church. Their generous continuing efforts and donations have helped Puente grow its programs. Today, Johnson chairs Puente’s 13-member Board of Directors. Lawson is the South Coast CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) coordinator, helping Puente and the wider community prepare for emergencies.

As Puente celebrates its 15-year anniversary this spring, both men reflect on how they contributed to Puente’s origins – and how it’s been to watch the ‘little nonprofit that could’ become the go-to resource for the entire South Coast community.

“I realized that I was afraid to talk to anybody in town”

Johnson and Lawson, who are a couple, moved to Pescadero in 1988. Johnson describes the South Coast back then as a place even more insular than it is today, cut off from the outside world and stratified between the English-speaking Anglos and the Spanish-speaking Latino field workers.

“I realized that I was afraid to talk to anybody in town,” recalls Johnson. That changed when Rev. Wendy Taylor founded Puente and started offering Spanish classes — really conversation classes that gave Johnson a chance to learn about the background and culture of the fieldworkers in town.

That spirit of connection grows each year with community events that bring locals together, like Puente’s seasonal Pescadero Grown! Farmers’ Markets and the Christmas Posada. Puente’s twice-weekly Zumba classesbring women, children, and sometimes a few men of different backgrounds together to exercise. And Puente’s new upstart ESL curriculum (designed by Professor Guadalupe Valdés of Stanford University) is already paving the way for a new generation of Latinos to learn English — just in time to more fully benefit from forthcoming federal immigration reforms as well as, of course, so much more.

And the learning continues. Johnson has watched the first generation of Puente youth go from teenaged interns to college students.

Johnson joined the Puente Board of Directors as Treasurer four years ago. He says he feels a “good energy” now. He sees it as a direct result of Puente’s spirited staff and dedicated cadre of volunteers.

“I think the town is much more integrated, much less segregated now. I think people are learning from each other.”

From bicycles to tax returns

Long before Puente came along, Lary Lawson used his connections at the Pescadero Thrift Store, run by South Coast Children’s Services, to bring t-shirts and other secondhand clothing to the migrant farm workers scattered around the area. After Rev. Taylor founded Puente, Lawson took on a ‘truck driver’ role – giving single men a lift to the homes of family members, especially at holiday time. Lawson would also pick up donated bicycles and convey them to their recipients in the bike donation program.

Those were the hand-to-mouth years, when Puente was there with a hot meal for field workers. Today, the organization still offers that along with a great deal more.

“They’ve grown from nowhere, to the church back room, to a small space in town, to the elementary school,” says Lawson, describing how Puente’s office space has shifted to accommodate its growth.

One perfect symbol of how much life has changed on the South Coast is that many of the people who never used to have the wherewithal to get around on their own are now filing annual tax returns with Puente’s free tax service. Both Lawson and Johnson are income tax volunteers with Puente, a job they both enjoy this time of year.

“I used to drive them around. Now they’re coming to us to do income taxes. That’s a huge leap,” marvels Lawson.

To donate to Puente, visit https://rally.org/puente. To learn more about volunteering with Puente, contact Abby Mohaupt atamohaupt@mypuente.org or (650) 879-1691 x196.

Pat Farquhar grew up on a farm in Ohio. And even though her life is pretty different now – she lives in urban Foster City and works at Verizon – she’s never forgotten the place she left behind. More than a decade ago, learning about the lives of farm workers in Pescadero sparked a relationship with Puente that continues to this day.

“I know what hard, physical, repetitive work is like,” says Farquhar. “I don’t think people know what the physical tasks are that these people do.”

Farquhar has donated a fixed amount to Puente every year since before 2002, a portion of which is matched by Verizon, her employer. Other Puente donors have had the same idea over the years – Symantec, Genentech and other local companies also have employee matching gift programs that allow Puente to maximize each gift.

Executive Director Kerry Lobel says she’s grateful for every single donation. “We’re constantly trying to find ways to stretch the giving that we have,” she says.

Farquhar’s introduction to Puente came from founder Rev. Wendy Taylor, a former pastor at the Congregational Church of Belmont. Rev. Taylor took Farquhar and other congregants on her behind-the-scenes tours of farm worker encampments, barracks and trailers. These housing sites were well off the beaten path, and seeing them was deeply affecting.

“That was eye-opening,” reflects Farquhar. “I was totally unaware of it – the conditions that people were working and living in.”

She was also deeply influenced by Rev. Taylor’s recent memoir, “No Longer Strangers: The Practice of Radical Hospitality,” which provides an account of the early days of Puente Ministry.

Over time, Farquhar has watched Puente grow from a church-based effort to funnel lifesaving essentials to single migrant workers on the coast, to a community-based nonprofit focused on improving the lives of every resident.

“It’s pretty remarkable… If you look at a decision that one person like Wendy can make, and how it all unfolds,” says Farquhar.

To donate to Puente, visit https://rally.org/puente. To learn more about how you can involve your employer in a matching gift program with Puente, contact Kerry Lobel at klobel@mypuente.org or (650) 879-1691 x 144.