Through the Eyes of an Elder: “Doña Toña,” an amazing elder

She enjoyed moving here because White Salmon resembled the little village in Mexico where she had spent her entire life before coming to the U.S. In Mexico, her family also lived right next to a river. The people in her village used that river as a water source, carrying buckets of water each day back to their homes. They did their laundry, washed their dishes, and bathed in the river.

They enjoyed their lives in the tiny village. Toña’s childhood, she explains, was very happy. She was free. Her mother and father took care of her and she felt their love. Toña had a very big family; Toña was the sixth of 10 children.

In Mexico, most of her family were agricultural laborers in the corn fields. But Toña’s mother worked with coconuts, cracking them, storing the coconut meat in big sacks, and selling the harvest to other villagers. The coconuts cost five cents a kilo (2.2 pounds). At about the age of 12, Toña started working with her mother …but other job opportunities awaited her in the future.

Once Toña came to the Gorge, she immediately got a job as an orchard worker. She worked at that orchard for about seven years. But in her village, she had watched closely as her mom and godmother constantly helped neighbors around them. They both inspired her very much. So in 1988 she became a Promotora de Salud (health promoter), first at La Clínica del Cariño in Hood River (now called One Community Health), and later at The Next Door.

Today the profession is known as “Community Health Worker” and involves extensive training and certification, reaching out to people of all races, ethnicities, and languages throughout our region. As a Community Health Worker, Toña connects people to social supports, provides informed counseling, and advocates for individual and community health needs

The Next Door is a nonprofit social service organization which manages over three dozen separate programs. Toña is involved in several of these programs. One of them helps people learn how to grow their own vegetables and gardens, something that for Toña feels like a blessing. Toña explains that being a Community Health Worker includes encouraging people to eat healthy foods. Although most people want to make changes in their eating habits, Toña observes that it’s easier to say you’re going to do something than to follow through. When it comes to healthy food, some of it can look too expensive. Maybe it’s hard to justify spending $6 on a pack of raspberries. Toña tries to steer people away from the need to buy expensive produce and instead toward growing their own fruits and vegetables. She personally teaches people how to plant, cultivate and harvest their own food, and has also been involved with supporting neighbors who sell freshly grown garden produce at economical prices in farmers’ markets and fruit stands.

Toña is an amazing person whose whole life is about helping others to be healthy, successful, and amazing people too. She is so many things — including a role model. She does so much for our communities that her talents have even been recognized nationally. She makes other peoples’ lives better, always contributing to the community. María Antonia Sanchez — our region’s beloved Doña Toña — will continue to make a difference in this world by helping all of those in need.