ABOUT CONTRA COSTA TOGETHER

Contra Costa Together is an emerging effort growing out of the California Accountable Communities for Health Initiative (CACHI), a multi-sector collaborative across California dedicated to making lasting transformational change to improve community health and well-being. CACHI serves as both a funder and a strategic partner for the ACHs.

This opportunity united community-based organizations (CBOs), resident leaders, and county systems to form the Contra Costa ACH Stewardship Team. Rather than focus on a short-term project or creating another coalition, the team chose to use the grant to drive deeper change by improving how we work together and encouraging others to join in reimagining and co-creating solutions. CACHI is an initiative aimed at creating change across multiple sectors and systems.

Contra Costa has a history of collaboration and innovation. For decades, organizations have worked together to expand access to conditions–such as health care, housing, and jobs–that ensure health and well-being. Despite these partnerships, communities of color — and other people facing harm from discrimination due to gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, and other identities — have been systematically marginalized by the very institutions responsible for meeting their needs. Chronic disinvestment in these same communities has caused harm for generations, and the targeted actions of the federal government threatens to halt local progress right now. We face yet another moment of uncertainty, chaos, and fear.

In this moment, CC-ACH chooses the Contra Costa Together Kick-Off Summit as the vehicle to build a movement where we all belong. We choose to be united by our shared values, to connect across our differences, and to heal together.

Stewardship Team

Philp H. Arnold Jr., Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist
Solomon Belette, MBA, East Contra Costa Community Alliance (ECCCA)
Kendra Carr, EdD, Co-Director, Contra Costa County Office of Racial Equity & Social Justice
Roxanne Carrillo Garza, MSW, Senior Director, Healthy Contra Costa
Gigi Crowder, L.E., CEO, NAMI Contra Costa
Kanwarpal Dhaliwal, Co-founder and Associate Director, RYSE
Ruth Fernández, EdD, Executive Director, First Five Contra Costa
David Gibbs, Senior Associate, Community Initiatives
Peter Kim, Co-Director, Contra Costa County Office of Racial Equity & Social Justice

Susun Kim, Esq., Executive Director, Family Justice Center
Shannon Ladner-Beasley, MPH, Equity Manager, Contra Costa Health
Marivel Mendoza, Executive Director, Hijas del Campo
Mariana Moore, Senior Director, Ensuring Opportunity Campaign
Duffy Newman, MHA, Executive Director. Programs & Partnerships, CCRHF
Miriam Orantes, Equity Administrator, Contra Costa Health
Monte Roulier, President, Community Initiatives
Gilbert Salinas, MPA, Chief Equity Officer, Contra Costa Health
Sabrina Saunders, Founder, One Accord Voting Project
Vy Vo, Executive Director, Contra Costa Asian American Pacific Islander Coalition

“Now, more than ever, it is imperative that our community members, agencies, and organizations unite with a shared purpose. This is a pivotal moment to collaborate, leverage our strengths, and work tirelessly toward the common good. Our collective action today will shape a better future for all, as we all have the right to exist as our whole selves within all corners of Contra Costa County and beyond. ¡La Lucha Sigue!”

Marivel Mendoza Matheu (she/her/Ella)

Co-Founder & Executive Director, Hijas del Campo

Catalyzing Change Through Shared Stewardship

Shared stewardship is what grows the belonging and civic muscle we need to expand vital conditions and shape new legacies for thriving together.

All of us, as leaders, must be united in how we work together. In this sense, we all are stewards of collective will and resources. Through shared commitments and actions, stewards ensure that all people, today and for decades to come, are able to not only survive, but to thrive.

Stewards bridge by connecting across differences or the lines that often divide us, including political and religious beliefs, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender identity.

Stewards heal by holding space that supports understanding. By joining together through individual and collective healing practices, we begin to carve a path toward renewal.

Stewards build by co-creating a future where we all belong and we all thrive — together. In solidarity and starting with community members and groups who are suffering and struggling the most, we co-design processes to ensure that communities are building their own thriving futures–and blocking actions rooted in exclusion and injustice.