A Letter from Ario Salazar
Dear Communities In Schools of Whatcom-Skagit Champion:
As many of you may have learnt from me earlier my Team and I have been working hard, during the last three weeks, on my transition out of the Executive Directorship of the agency. Our hyper-focused aim has been to ensure that the Team is properly set up for nothing but deeper, transformational and unmatched impact during this 2022-2023 Academic Year, currently unfolding before each and every step we take.
Needless to say, it has been the privilege and great pleasure of all my life to have spent these last four years in your wise, generous, kind, and thoughtful presence. I have learnt a lot from each one of you, and none of it is lost on me. For example, I learnt that it takes a diverse and skillful Coalition of Champions to truly triage each and every student (and their families) with the necessary resources and social-capital so that access, equity, and inclusion become the essential, basic needs inputs that fuel their potential, aspirations, and goals for a more just and inclusive future in our communities.
Together we empowered -for four years, non-stop- youth and their families to soar up as high as they could against all odds. We achieved that and more by understanding that programs, alone, don’t transform lives, but that deep, caring, kind and compassionate relationships do. I deeply thank you for your generous and compassionate championship, for the relentless support and vote of confidence you placed on me and on our small but mighty Team at Communities In Schools of Whatcom-Skagit. Thank You! does not even begin the express the profound level of gratitude I feel as I write this final note to you.
As you read this note, please rest assured that Ari Wright, our current Interim Executive Director, and Geof Morgan, our Board Treasurer, are your dependable, key contacts for all things related to partnership stewardship, reporting, and coordination. Their emails and contact information are listed on our website: CIS of WS.
Lastly, please don’t doubt that I’m always in your ken, and when the time comes, I’ll always be in your corner. For now, I’ll simply say “hasta pronto!” (this is not goodbye!) with this poem I wrote on my last day at the job (11/04/2022), thinking of each one of you:
