Marisa Michell Montgomery. Photo by BB Rivas / El Concilio Family Services
Editor’s note: Part of a continuing series of stories profiling the award-winners of El Concilio Family Services’ 2015 Latino Leadership Awards. The awards gala will be held on Saturday, June 6 at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center. Click here or call 805-486-9777 for more information.
Amigos805 staff reports
Marisa Montgomery, born and raised in Mexico, was one of 10 children who were raised by parents who believed in having a healthy family and children educated in Mexico.
She attended private Catholic elementary schools in Mexico before coming to California and attending Ventura High School and Ventura College. She returned to Guadalajara where she continued here education at the Autónoma University School of Medicine, enrolling in the four-year nursing program. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing with a specialty in obstetrics. She returned to Ventura County and became a basic life-support instructor at Ventura County Medical Center (VCMC), teaching CPR before becoming a certified lactation counselor and supporting VCMC’s effort to be a “Baby Friendly Hospital.”
In her nomination letter, she stated, “I believe in supporting the community to raise healthy families.… My role model was my mother. She always said, ‘Do good without expecting anything in return,’ so I usually find myself doing more than what I am supposed to do. I apply this ethic to my work in lactation education with the new mothers and fathers.”
In one nomination letter, it was noted, “I have worked in the same area that Marisa works for several years and I have never seen anyone else as caring and dedicated to the Latino community as Marisa is. Her ability to communicate with her patients in their own language is remarkable. The service and education that Marisa provides to the patients and their families does not end in the hospital. Marisa gives her number to her patients to follow up with her as their need arrives.”
The 26th annual Latino Leadership Awards will begin with a reception at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 6 at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson Way, Oxnard. Tickets are $200 each or $1,500 for a table of eight (8).
Click here to RSVP for the awards gala. For more information on El Concilio’s programs and services, visit www.elconciliofs.org or call 805-486-9777 ext. 228.