Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month Spotlight | Erik Solorio

Sep 23

Written By Courtney Lamar

During Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month, Eat. Learn. Play. celebrates influential Hispanic and Latino/a leaders in the Oakland community who are doing fantastic work supporting our mission of providing access to the three essential pillars of a healthy childhood — nutrition, education, and physical activity.

Meet Erik Solorio, Lead Nurse at La Clínica de La Raza. For Erik, Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month is about honoring the sacrifice, commitment, and resilience of his ancestors and those that came before him. Through his work with La Clínica, he is able to continue this commitment by working to elevate his community through their services.

Our team at Eat. Learn. Play. is truly grateful to Erik and the entire La Clínica team for all they have done to support our efforts and keep our communities safe.

Continue reading about Erik and La Clínica’s work below, and stay tuned this month for more profiles of our friends in the Oakland community.

What do you love most about Oakland?

Erik: I love its rhythm. As I’ve gotten to discover and get to know Oakland more deeply over the last three years, I’ve realized that there is a song to Oakland. Whether you’re having a weekend at the lake, a stroll in Temescal, a bike ride near the Marina, enjoying a night at First Fridays, or advocating at a protest, there is a rhythm to where you are in Oakland. It is a rhythm that can make you dance, a rhythm that can bring out joy, pain, anger, and love. Oakland is just like a song and I’ve loved being able to dance along with this beautiful city.

What does Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month mean to you?

Erik: The month is one of reverence for our heritage and my own family. It’s a time of honoring the sacrifice, commitment, and resilience of those before us. And a time of excitement for the future of our community. It is a time to look down, see where my feet are planted and remember all my family, ancestors and loved ones that have worked, migrated, and sacrificed to get me where I’m standing.

What does it mean to you personally to be able to support the local community through your work?

Erik: Working at La Clínica over the past three years in the Fruitvale neighborhood has been the deepest of experiences. I am blessed to work closely with the communities I hold so dear to my heart. Proximity is a beautiful thing and La Clínica has allowed me to work right next to and accompany some of the most marginalized, targeted ,and vulnerable communities. The process of accompaniment, of walking with has revealed the importance of standing near those that make up our community. It’s a truly beautiful experience to work at La Clínica and support my community.

How is your organization helping kids and families in the community amid the pandemic?

Erik: From the beginning of the pandemic, La Clínica was able to step up for our communities throughout the Bay Area. Before we saw widespread community transmission, we immediately recognized the need to help families with the necessities. Our clinical and health education teams responded quickly and began assisting families to navigate food delivery, rental assistance and cleaning supply delivery. In addition, we helped make sure that our kids and families remained fed. As the pandemic extended and the Fruitvale neighborhood became one of the most heavily impacted by Covid infections, La Clínica built a robust community testing and tracing program. We offered free and accessible testing to our community and helped residents navigate resources so that they could stay home and quarantine when needed.

Thanks to the collaborative work with Alameda County, La Clínica’s tracing team gave out over 450 stipend cards to our community. This translated to over 550 thousand dollars delivered directly to the hands of our community. This money was provided to families that had household members test positive and came with no strings attached, it was money that we trusted our community would use for their needs.

As vaccines have become available, La Clínica rapidly expanded our vaccination program throughout Alameda, Solano, and Contra Costa counties. Thanks to the incredible work of our team, La Clínica has been able to administer over 65 thousand vaccines to our highest risk and priority zip codes. As vaccines were approved for younger populations, we quickly adapted and started vaccinating children as they became eligible. This commitment to our community’s well-being is something that will remain a central part of our work as La Clínica.