Make a difference in the lives of families. Whether you’re packing food baskets, helping at events, or sharing your skills, every hour you give helps create stronger, healthier communities.
CBS News San Francisco
ABC 7 Bay Area
At The Castañeda Kids Foundation, we are dedicated to transforming lives through education, healthcare, sports, and nutrition.
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Carlos is the president of The Castañeda Kids Foundation and has been since it became a non-profit in 2015. He is currently an EMT for the San Francisco Fire Department. Throughout his 15-year career in emergency medicine, he has worked for several other companies including American Medical Response, Silicon Valley Ambulance, the SAP Center in San Jose, and MedTech Services.
After participating in three medical mission trips to Haiti, Carlos helped elevate and expand the foundation’s work to include medical missions in the country where his grandparents began the foundation. Carlos has led the foundation’s medical mission teams to El Salvador for six years now. In 2020, he received a Jefferson Award for Public Service for his work with the foundation. However, Carlos is a firm believer that it is not one person who makes this foundation successful, it is the members of the foundation, volunteers, and donors. Everyone involved is an integral part of its success and not one part can succeed without the other.
Since he was a child, Carlos has participated in the foundation’s food basket distribution, one of the original missions of the foundation originally started by his grandparents. The experience of giving to those who are underserved in his ancestral home impacted his outlook on life in the best way and helped form who he is today. He has now come full circle with his wife and one of his children now participating in the foundations activities.
Elena is a marketing professional at Nvidia Corporation. In her current role, she manages the execution of large-scale partner marketing initiatives for high-profile accounts including Cisco Systems and Super Micro Corporation. A University of Michigan graduate, Elena has demonstrated the business and technology acumen needed to lead the execution and progression of her account’s initiatives.
Elena is a born negotiator, strong communicator, and meticulous planner. She translates company vision and mission into tangible processes for her accounts while effectively managing multi-million program budgets in accordance with established global business models.
A third-generation Castañeda Kids Foundation family member, Elena’s first service efforts began in middle school when she secured donations to provide sports equipment for children who she saw couldn’t play a sport she loved due to their impoverished circumstances. She hasn’t stopped since. Whether as a mission translator, a vocal advocate for equality in girls’ sports or a sage voice representing the next generation of service leaders, Elena can be counted on to do what is right for those who need representation.
Kevin comes to the foundation board as a longtime friend of the Castañeda and Martinez families. Kevin has traveled to El Salvador on TCKF medical missions with his daughter Brittany, a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP).
A veteran of more than three decades with the Santa Clara Police Department, Kevin has worked every type of assignment, held every rank, and retired as the Chief of Police. During his law enforcement career, he has gained expertise in operations, personnel administration, budgeting, and community involvement. He also studied, taught, and practiced Servant Leadership. Kevin hopes these experiences can help him be of service to TCKF.
Kevin is driven to help TCKF because he is inspired by its volunteers and what he has seen in El Salvador. He was humbled by the primitive living conditions and the exuberant gratitude of people receiving our basic medical care. In addition to the medical missions, His favorite TCKF programs are the food basket distributions and scholarships, and is amazed at what many of us can take for granted.
“We can feed a family for a week for the price of a month of Netflix and send a child to private school for less than what most people spend at Starbucks in a month.”
Mario is a senior investigator collector for the City of San Jose Finance Department’s Revenue Management Division. He oversees a staff of investigator collectors and senior/principal office specialists in the division’s business tax unit. He has been with the department’s Revenue Management Division for more than seven years.
Prior to working in the city’s Finance Department, Mario had held positions with San Jose’s Parks & Recreation Department, the City of Mountain View’s Community Services Department, and Lockheed Martin. He attended West Valley College in Saratoga, Calif. and graduated from San Jose State University majoring in Communication Studies which has helped him in providing exceptional customer service for over 17 years.
Mario has volunteered for The Castañeda Kids Foundation since it was formed at their different fundraisers and medical missions. He is willing to help in any way he can to help the foundation in providing its core services to those who need them and expanding its growth and reach.
Dr. Rhys Dapar is a board-certified emergency physician and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians for the past 30 years. As a senior partner with Vituity, he practices at both Good Samaritan Hospital, San Jose, and Dominican Hospital, Santa Cruz. He is a former clinical instructor and assistant clinical professor in emergency medicine for the Stanford-Kaiser Emergency Medicine Residency Program. Rhys obtained his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and completed his emergency medicine residency training at the prestigious Harbor-UCLA Department of Emergency Medicine.
His extensive experience in emergency medicine includes training with leading military and civilian industry experts at the NOAA Diving Program in Seattle, Washington and becoming an NOAA diving physician. At UCLA, he trained a number of research scientists and field-tested a variety of wet submersibles destined for Arctic and Antarctic scientific projects. He has written book chapters and journal articles for scuba and diving emergencies. Because of his experience in prehospital care and communications, he represented university-based EMS programs in Washington DC for the establishment of 9-1-1 as the universal number for emergencies in the 1980s. After moving to the Bay Area, he helped establish pediatric emergency guidelines and equipment for all of Santa Clara County.
Rhys is passionate about providing healthcare for underserved populations. As an emergency physician, he regularly cares for many people who have no access or means to attain basic medical care. He joined The Castañeda Kids Foundation in 2017 and serves as its medical director for the medical missions, developing treatment protocols that have greatly increased the capacity of the missions. His experience with TCKF has been both meaningful and personally satisfying. As a result, he has enlisted the help of his own family members, his medical colleagues, and their family members in the annual medical missions.
Carmen Lewis is the Principal at C2 Communications, a communications consulting firm for executives who want to enhance and revitalize the communication skills needed to drive growth, transformation and innovation. A 30-year technology marketing and communications executive, Carmen is a trusted business advisor whose career success is based on the ability to work cross-functionally and drive large-scale initiatives.
Prior to C2 Communications, Carmen spent 10 years at Cisco Systems. She served as the Head of Communications for Cisco’s $6B, 6000+ person Collaboration business. During her tenure, Carmen also led the communication efforts for Cisco’s Enterprise Networking, Chief Digital Office and Consulting Services organizations.
A TCKF founding member and Salvadoran in heritage, Carmen is passionate about supporting the needs of the underserved in El Salvador. She is deeply committed to the “pay it forward” mentality and believes that by helping others, TCKF creates a cycle of giving and care beyond what the team can witness. Carmen leverages her business and communication skills to fundraise, provide insights and recommendations in support of the Foundation’s growth, and help extend the reach of the organization. She volunteers because she knows it makes a difference.
Daniel is a retired business operations leader who spent the majority of his career in the automotive electronics industry. His management of the customer service cycle and his depth of understanding of company finances fueled his knowledge of the relationship between business administration and profitability.
Daniel also leveraged analytics tools to provide insightful and relevant business guidance, resulting, among other things, in the adoption of a nationwide corporate operations improvement guide.
Daniel uses his career experience to help orient the foundation’s financial trajectory and ensure compliance with federal 501(c)3 regulations. As a native Salvadorean whose youth was spent in a family that served his fellow Salvadoreans, he grew up with first-hand knowledge of the difficulties experienced by the working poor of El Salvador. He believes in providing people with the tools so they can be successful on their own, and become contributing members of society.
Marina is the Principal at Arriba Linguistic Services, an interpretation/translation company that has successfully provided services to companies and individuals with language needs for over 20 years. Overlapping her career as an interpreter, Marina also worked for 20 years as a human resources consultant, providing technology companies with the guidance and counsel required to successfully implement and manage employee stock purchase programs. She also served as operations manager for 10 years at Hotel Terraza, a mid-sized business hotel in El Salvador.
Marina’s extensive knowledge of both corporate and small business environments, alongside her operations background, provided the expertise necessary to create and manage the operational infrastructure for TCKF. She serves as the chief liaison for the many Salvadoran entities that benefit from TCKF’s initiatives.
Marina’s deep love of El Salvador and desire to help those in need compel her to consistently seek out opportunities where TCKF’s commitment can affect and improve people’s circumstances. She recognizes the need that so many Salvadorans experience and feels honored to contribute the skills and resources she has to address and bridge this gap.
Melanie is the Senior Director of Customer Advocacy and Insights at Google Cloud where she leads an organization focused on strengthening relationships with Google Cloud’s most strategic customers, and ensuring their perspectives are heard and acted upon to improve customer satisfaction and fuel growth.
Before joining Google, Melanie spent 20 years at Cisco Systems where she built the Customer & Partner Engagement organization. She is an Emmy-nominated journalist with a BA from George Washington University. She was a producer at NBC News before joining Cisco where she managed all of Cisco’s broadcast news stories for five years.
A Castañeda Kids Foundation Board Member. Melanie believes – at a fundamental level – that raising children and supporting families, no matter the economic circumstances, takes a full village. She was humbled by her recent trip to El Salvador where she witnessed firsthand the massive impact compassion and basic care can have on a family’s well-being. Melanie uses her knowledge of communications, media and marketing to influence members in the technology field to get engaged by donating their time, their subject matter expertise and their money to help foster a greater community of giving.
James is a retired SEO consultant who worked for 10 years at Stone Temple Consulting. He worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies to analyze and optimize their websites for search results. He also managed Google Ads accounts for multiple companies. Prior to his work with Stone Temple, James performed website design and back-end programming.
He is a Chemical Engineering graduate from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to his website and SEO careers, he worked as a process, packaging, and product development engineer at the Clorox Company’s R&D facility in Dublin, Calif. for 20 years.
James has enjoyed providing technical expertise to the foundation including managing the website and digitizing medical mission functions, as well as helping organize fundraisers. He created software to track patients from intake through prescription fulfillment during our annual medical missions. Compared to the limitations of earlier paper-based systems, he has found it very rewarding to maximize the number of patients our medical staff and pharmacists can treat on a daily basis.
Sylvia is the VP for Business at Hotel Best Western Plus Terraza in San Salvador, having worked in this family business for 28 years. After obtaining her business degree at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, and a hotel management postgraduate credential, Sylvia brought a series of innovations to the hotel once managed by her parents, introducing new technologies, marketing strategies and special events and positioning the family business to compete in the hospitality arena with multi-national corporations.
Sylvia has always had a passion for community work and believes that education is the basis for any change to happen in any society. In 1989, she participated with with her parents in the former Carlos and Marina Castañeda Foundation’s first food basket giveaway, which has now become an annual tradition and expanded to other communities. In 1997, she and her siblings created the foundation’s scholarship fund and it became a cause very close to her heart.
Together with her husband Jorge, Sylvia has worked with students and educators to expand the number of eligible scholarship recipients and donors have responded with additional sponsorships. In addition, she created motivational workshops with the students and their parents to promote values, self-esteem, and the drive to pursue education to the highest level. The workshops have promoted the “pay it forward” philosophy, which has now resulted in former students starting scholarship programs and workshops of their own. The scholarship program caught the eye of education activist and Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai after a number of students wrote letters to her, which she each answered personally.
With her siblings and foundation members in the U.S., Sylvia and Jorge support the foundation’s work in El Salvador, using their local contacts and resources available to make the programs successful.
Kyle is a dedicated and passionate healthcare professional with a solid foundation in both clinical and community health services. A graduate of UC Berkeley, he currently serves as the Lead Medical Scribe in the Emergency Department at Good Samaritan Hospital, where he supports physicians and plays a crucial role in patient care. In addition to his duties at the hospital, Kyle also volunteers as the co-lead Clinic Coordinator for the Vituity Cares Foundation. In this role, he helps set up and organize pop-up clinics for homeless and underserved populations in San Jose, providing essential healthcare services to those most in need.
Kyle’s journey in healthcare began early. In 2017, as a sophomore in high school, he became involved with The Castañeda Kids Foundation, a pivotal moment that sparked his passion for medicine. Witnessing the foundation’s efforts to improve the lives of underserved populations ignited his desire to pursue a career in healthcare. Since then, Kyle has become an integral part of TCKF, contributing to projects such as the creation of medical Spanish videos that help increase health literacy in the community. His dedication to the foundation and its mission has been evident through his consistent efforts to expand its reach and effectiveness. He approaches each task with determination and enthusiasm, constantly seeking ways to improve both himself and the foundation. His youthful energy and creativity have brought fresh perspectives to the board, where he continues to play a vital role in shaping the foundation’s future.
Kyle’s experiences thus far reflect his deep commitment to both medicine and social justice. His work in the emergency department, his leadership in organizing community health initiatives, and his involvement with The Castañeda Kids Foundation all speak to his unwavering dedication to improving healthcare for those most in need. He is preparing to apply to medical school with the goal of entering emergency medicine and focusing on underserved populations and addressing global health inequities. With a bright future ahead, Kyle is poised to continue making a significant difference in the lives of others, both locally and globally.
Carlos is a veteran news producer with decades of experience in television, radio, streaming, OTT, web and social media. He has produced live newscasts for linear TV and streaming, live segments in the field, and managed live breaking news events. At Yahoo!, Carlos worked on one of the first web-only streaming newscasts, the groundbreaking FinanceVision. As both web managing editor and senior editor for news and social media at CBS News San Francisco, Carlos has lived through the evolving technology of delivering news on multiple platforms.
Carlos has also worked with student-athletes as a coach, mentor, and current U.S. Soccer referee. He has also served on the boards for youth sports clubs and soccer referee association in his hometown of Pleasanton, Calif.
Along with his three sisters comprising the Castañeda Kids, Carlos has inherited his parents Carlos and Marina’s desire to help provide for those less fortunate. In addition, his family has also helped him forge a love of music, sports and healthy competition that the foundation wants to spread to those with few avenues to pursue. He has been made a better person by the love and support of his wife Teresita and their daughters Sofía, Isabela, and Lucía. He is driven to create equal opportunities for young girls such as those his daughters have been blessed to enjoy and receive life lessons from.
James is a retired SEO consultant who worked for 10 years at Stone Temple Consulting. He worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies to analyze and optimize their websites for search results. He also managed Google Ads accounts for multiple companies. Prior to his work with Stone Temple, James performed website design and back-end programming.
He is a Chemical Engineering graduate from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to his website and SEO careers, he worked as a process, packaging, and product development engineer at the Clorox Company’s R&D facility in Dublin, Calif. for 20 years.
James has enjoyed providing technical expertise to the foundation including managing the website and digitizing medical mission functions, as well as helping organize fundraisers. He created software to track patients from intake through prescription fulfillment during our annual medical missions. Compared to the limitations of earlier paper-based systems, he has found it very rewarding to maximize the number of patients our medical staff and pharmacists can treat on a daily basis.
