Center honors Santa Maria

The Center is pleased to name Santa Maria as one of our 2023 honorees. In the weeks ahead, we look forward to working with Liz Bonis and Channel 12 to promote our event and honorees. The virtual annual event is our only fundraiser and creates awareness about individuals and organizations who support our community. Congrats to Santa Maria — a stronghold in Greater Cincinnati.

“Santa Maria is deeply honored and grateful to receive the Transformation Award from the Center for Respite Care. This recognition is a testament to the steadfast dedication and hard work of our team at Santa Maria Community Services. This award serves as a powerful validation of our commitment to making a lasting impact in the lives of those we serve,” HA Musser, President, and CEO of Santa Maria Community Services, Inc, said.

Who is Santa Maria?

Santa Maria Community Services is a catalyst and advocate for Cincinnati’s Greater Price Hill families to attain their educational, financial, and health goals. They provide more than 2,500 individuals with educational tools and resources to build strong families, promote healthy residents, and foster neighborhood revitalization. Santa Maria’s vision is for Greater Price Hill to be a vibrant, thriving, and self-sustaining community. The Price Hill Family Centers provide a welcoming environment and coaching, support, and flexibility to assist families to achieve their identified goals toward stabilization and self-sufficiency.

How Santa Maria came to be:

“With $5 ‘seed’ money and the taming of the West under her belt, a little Italian nun set out in 1897 to see what she could do to lick the Cincinnati Basin’s problems. Her name was Sister Blandina Segale, and if Cincinnati has forgotten her, it has forgotten one of its most colorful figures and founder of what is now Santa Maria Community Services” (excerpt from The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1975 by Rosemary Davis).

The Sisters of Charity established Santa Maria in 1897 as a settlement house to serve Cincinnati’s Italian immigrant population. Beginning in the 1940s, the primary service population shifted to the new immigrants to Cincinnati, the people of Appalachia. In 1972, Santa Maria became a private not-for-profit. Today, the original Appalachian families, their descendants, and African Americans comprise a large segment of Santa Maria’s service population. Since the mid-1990s, a rapidly growing Hispanic/Latino community is making its home in Price Hill, and Santa Maria has assisted this population since 2001. Santa Maria provides services to more than 2,500 individuals and families annually.

What does Santa Maria do?

Musser explains the role that Santa Maria plays in the community;

“Santa Maria is committed to creating a positive and lasting impact in our community. Our comprehensive range of programs and services addresses the diverse needs of individuals and families. We recognize the importance of strong family units in building a thriving community and help families overcome immediate challenges to improve their overall well-being and quality of life. By fostering a sense of community pride and unity, we work toward creating a safer, more vibrant, and inclusive Price Hill community. We believe that by empowering individuals and families with the necessary tools and resources, we can create a stronger and more resilient community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”

Santa Maria’s vision and values:

Mission: Santa Maria is a catalyst and advocates for Greater Price Hill families to attain their educational, financial, and health goals.

Vision: Our vision is for Greater Price Hill to be a vibrant, thriving, and self-sustaining community.

Goals: Children are kindergarten-ready, and youth have support to continue their education; Families attain economic health through job and housing stability and successfully integrate into the community; Family members achieve health and wellness through access to health services and support programs; Santa Maria Community Services leads the collaborative community efforts to strengthen Price Hill.

Values: partnership, empowerment, results, family, empathy, community, trust, and stewardship.

• Partnership: Santa Maria Community Services provides a wide array of services, often in collaboration with the community and our partners, in an effort to address community needs and concerns.
• Empowerment: Santa Maria Community Services provides individuals and families with the knowledge, training, and skills to meet their goals and utilize their own potential.
• Results: Santa Maria Community Services is an impact-driven agency focused on making a difference in the lives of families for the long term.
• Family: Santa Maria Community Services focuses on a family-centered approach, putting the family first in order to make the biggest impact in the lives of those we serve.
• Empathy: Santa Maria Community Services meet individuals where they are and focuses on their most significant needs first.
• Community: Santa Maria Community Services is a Price Hill-based agency focused on improving the lives of residents and strengthening the neighborhoods.
• Trust: Santa Maria Community Services builds trusting relationships with our partners and those we serve through a safe and friendly environment.
• Stewardship: Santa Maria Community Services takes responsibility for how we take care of our constituents and holds ourselves accountable to our staff, participants, funders, partners, and the community.

Musser further explains the future of Santa Maria;

“We aim to empower individuals and families in the community to become self-sufficient and resilient. Our goal is to provide them with the resources, skills, and support necessary to overcome challenges and achieve their full potential. We are committed to ensuring that every child in the community has access to quality education and opportunities for personal growth. We work toward fostering economic growth, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship as well as empowering individuals to achieve financial stability and independence. Our long-term goal is to address the root causes of poverty and inequality, and to create lasting systemic change that benefits the entire community.”

Thank you to Santa Maria for being an important part of our community and a friend of the Center.

“We are humbled to be recognized alongside other individuals and organizations who have made a difference in the lives of people in our community. This recognition inspires us to continue our vital work, addressing the ever-evolving needs of our community,” Musser said.