Edward ‘Boss’ Prado Foundation makes sure students get lunch and all teens have access to clothes for interviews, prom
Published in the March 19 – April 1, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo courtesy Cecelia Ponzini
Laura Gonzalez-Escoto, Cecelia Ponzini and Angelica Cisneros (center) display the new closet at Central High School with four students.
When her son passed away 10 years ago at age 29, Cecelia Ponzini knew she wanted to do something special in his honor to find some closure. At first she didn’t know what that something might be. Then she thought of creating a foundation as a legacy to her son. The Edward “Boss” Prado Foundation was started last year by Ponzini and her husband Gary to help local children and teenagers experience a better quality of life at their schools.
“I had been talking with Mayor Steve Tate back and forth and one day he just looked at me and said, ‘Cecilia, it’s just time. You can do it. We’ll help you,’” she said, recalling the impetus. “I just realized that if I utilize my resources, and then I just get to work, and I don’t just delegate but participate, it just spirals from there.”
The major initiative of the foundation is to make sure every student at Sobrato and Live Oak high schools gets to eat a meal at lunch time. Its “No Child Goes Unfed” program helps all students who cannot afford lunch for any reason. They go to the Associated Student Body office and receive a lunch ticket paid for by the foundation.
“One of my issues is for every kid to be able to eat a full lunch with no division from the other students on any given day, with no questions asked and with total dignity,” Ponzini said. “I didn’t want to have the kids go to a different line to ask for a free lunch. So they get right in with the other kids and the other kids don’t know.”
Making sure that young people have the dignity of nice clothing is another component of the Edward “Boss” Prado Foundation. Ponzini started a program in 2012 for young girls at Live Oak and Sobrato to borrow prom dresses so they can go to the school year’s big dances in fashionable style. And the foundation’s Cecelia’s Closet program provides good-quality clothing for men, women and children in need of attire for their jobs and school. The clothing is provided through referrals from Community Solutions and other nonprofit social organizations.
Photo by Marty Cheek
“Compassion and commitment go well together,” said Cecelia Ponzini. The Cecelia’s Closet “dream team” are from left Angelica Cisneros, Isela Sabala, Laura Gonzalez-Escoto and, sitting, Cecelia Ponzini.
For elementary school students, the foundation is creating a project with the goal of making sure all kids have nice shoes. Ponzini plans to start this at P.A. Walsh Elementary School, which her son attended. The teachers will know which of their students need shoes and the family will get a Payless ShoeSource gift card.
“I’m going to be providing one school at a time,” Ponzini said. “Those little kids can have shoes. Some of them when it’s raining, they’re wearing sandals, and that’s only because they don’t have tennis shoes. Especially when school starts, it’s nice when they have good shoes and a little backpack.”
Adding to the assistance for in-need students, Ponzini’s foundation is developing a program for providing free eyeglasses for students who need them but can’t afford them. Another foundation approached her to team up on this project. Students go to the school nurse who tests their vision. If the nurse thinks they need glasses, the children receive paperwork that lets them get an eye exam from Morgan Hill optometrist Robert Crowe to determine what prescription strength the new glasses need to be, Ponzini said.
Much of Ponzini’s drive in building her family’s foundation to help Morgan Hill’s youth comes from the memories of the difficulties of her own childhood and teenage years. She married at age 15 while still in high school and had a difficult relationship with her husband. By age 19, she had four children and was raising them as a single mother.
“I remember when I had nothing,” she said. “I remember being on welfare, on food stamps, and just making it work at the end of the month. I don’t forget where I come from. I don’t forget my mistakes. I don’t forget my past… So everything I do sort of relates to the part of me somewhere in my past in myself. This is what the foundation is all about – it’s about a vision, a vision of the kids having what they need. It’s called giving back.”
Morgan Hill Unified School District school board member Claudia Rossi has grown impressed with how Ponzini has taken her hardships and used them to alleviate the difficulties of the students served through the foundation’s various programs.
“She and her considerable network of friends donate high quality dresses for prom knowing that there are young people who can’t possibly afford the garments worn in this coming of age tradition,” Rossi said. “She reaches out to students that have been expelled and faced disciplinary actions to consistently reassure them that it is always possible to start anew.”
