PUBLIC ALLIES SAN ANTONIO

Anna Castaneda was not expected to make it this far. Anna says, “I’ve had for good reasons had to become a single parent. I wear the same shoes that a lot of our clients who come into the program wear. I have the opportunity to put things in place for myself as I am assisting them.”

Mia Espinoza is proudly from the West Side of San Antonio. She graduated from Fox Tech High School. She is now working at the East Side Education Training Center as a Community Outreach Liaison for those looking to find jobs and to go back to school.

Anna Castañeda was good at her job. As a cocaine and heroin dealer on the San Antonio’s Westside, she was a 23-year-old girl doing the job of a drug industry veteran, and commanding plenty of respect.

“You come to buy two dimes of heroin, and you leave with ten dimes and a bag of coke,” Castañeda said, reflecting on her business skills.

The problem was that, by 26, Castañeda had four kids and a felony conviction, possession with intent to distribute cocaine. She was living on a precarious edge that couldn’t last forever. Over the next year she would find herself on a perilous journey in and out of homelessness, in which her remarkable grit and determination would be matched only by the generosity she encountered along the way, finally bringing her to a place of hope.

LiftFund, a  locally based financial and business support service organization, announced two new executive-level hires on Monday. Richard Ruebe was appointed as the nonprofit’s chief operating officer, and Martha Zurita as its new vice president for communications.