We, who have completed the Coro experience, realize that this organization is a vanguard for creative understanding, problem solving and moral leadership training. These ingredients are needed more than ever. I appreciate the opportunity to give back.

I had heard about Coro during my college at California State University, East Bay. I tentatively jumped at the opportunity to be a Coro Community Fellow, because I had recently started a job as program specialist for the County of Alameda in Emergency Medical Services Injury Prevention Program. With a fairly new Director who never heard of Coro and needed every hand on deck, I knew it was going to be stressful.

Coro taught me assessment and problem solving with such an eclectic group of people. People who worked in business, government, finance, education, and non profits, it was all so enthralling.

I will never forget being thrown together in the mezzanine of a downtown San Francisco Hotel to learn about the various sectors of business, municipal government, and finance, versus the people of poverty and street entrepreneurs on the fringes of these estates and how they interacted to find a workable solution.

I was amazed by the investigation and training techniques sharpened that lead to possible solutions, but even greater understanding, of the issues and complexities that are plaguing our communities from violence prevention in Oakland, to land use in Fremont, to financing education in Atherton- Menlo Park. We were lead by one an intuitive, brainy but compassionate person named Laney Whitcanac (I secretively called her Brainy Laney). Coro addressed our inner thoughts and prejudices, while opening our mind to both sides of the solution in democratic and “the need to get it done” process. This process has helped me in my job and in my life.

Personally, it was stressful at times leaving work in San Leandro early to make the check-in time in San Francisco, 21 miles away. It was a push to leave my family and friends during fun stuff on Friday and Saturdays to interview, evaluate, and write. It was a hard to look at the expansion of my thoughts, feelings, and investigative abilities to prepare, organize, and disseminate humanitarian and realistic conclusions. It was the Coro Community Fellows Program, and I loved every engrossing minute of it.