Our Vision
Our Mission
Eastside Family Coalition (EFC) is committed to empower Eastside youth and their parents/caregivers through mind, body, and spirit-strengthening skills and techniques, emotional regulation and communication skills to build unity and support for thriving families.
Eastside Family Coalition (EFC) aims to build intergenerational unity through celebrating culture and empowering families to uplift their talents and co-create a joyful and resilient future.
Our Values
Courage Mutual respect Teamwork Dedication Gratitude
Our programs:
Community Garden
We teach homesteading and sustainable growing practices to encourage participation in local food/medicine systems.
Learning & Assistance
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Health & Healing
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About Us
In February of 2023, we began our journey with the Methodist Healthcare Ministries (MHM) Thriving Together / Prosperemos Juntos learning collaborative— a 6-month project dedicated to supporting the health strategies of multi-sector coalitions across the city. Upon acceptance into the program in December, we were awarded funds to sustain our work for the following 3 years. During this period, we asked the community for their input into the strengths of the community and what else was needed. From this point, we co-designed a healing and development program rooted in the culture of the majority population of the eastside to address these needs.
Executive Board
Vanessa Quezada
Vanessa Quezada, PharmD (she/her/ella) is a member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, Xarame Clan and is of Kickapoo descent. As part of Yolpaki Coaching & Consulting, she supports culturally rooted youth and family leadership development. She is dedicated to supporting participants along their journey of becoming engaged citizens that shape their environments for cultural revitalization, intergenerational collaborations and thriving together.
Gera Marin
Gera Marin is a facilitator, executive leader coach, and Inclusive Culture Trainer dedicated to the collective achievement of thriving communities throughout Abya Yala (the Americas). He is Indigenous/Chicano from the Chihuahuan Desert, El Paso Texas, a member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Tribe-Xarame Clan, and carries Ashkenazi and Spanish Ancestry.
He serves through Yolpaki Coaching for youth leadership movements, organizations, and mission-driven businesses to achieve tauthentic relationships, trust, and fulfilling collaborations. Gera’s work is rooted in love and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge values such as collective responsibility, gratitude, and celebration.
Gera weaves interactive and healing centered facilitation methods to support people in moving from transactional to more humanistic connections. His work supports providers and leaders in doing the internal work that results in participant retention, innovation, and sustainability of programs.
He is in the zone when facilitating Sound Healing Power Up circles, drumming with friends, and cooking indigenous foods with community.
Charles Sattiewhite
Charles Sattiewhite is the CEO of San Antonio Rising Stars’, whose mission on the Eastside is to provide a safe and secure environment that promotes healthy behaviors conducive to the well- being of our youth.
Their goals are to:
• Enhance education for our kids.
• Remove the negative stigma placed on our kids.
• Strengthen our kid’s thinking ability so they can access better choices.
• Provide treatment, training, referral, and rehabilitation where needed.
• Educate our kids on healthy lifestyles.
• Reform our kids' minds so they can rise above being merely a statistic.
PLE’s (People with Living Experience)
Administrative Assistants
MJ Leon
MJ is a community member raised in the west and east sides of San Antonio, dedicated to supporting community-informed solutions to a vibrant, flourishing east side. He offers a wide array of skills to strategize and develop systems for organizing our collective work.
Natisha Loving
Natisha Loving is a dedicated community innovator, educator. With over 15 years of experience working with youth and families, she has spent the last seven years serving San Antonio’s through initiatives focused on education, food justice, youth development, and family resilience. As a long-time homeschooling mother of four and a skilled gardener, Natisha integrates hands-on learning and wellness into her outreach. She leads programs that uplift Black and Brown communities, including family-centered gun safety education, community gardening and so much more. Natisha is a scheduling coordinator for the San Antonio Patriots homeschool basketball teams and a life insurance agent, using all her roles to equip families with tools for long-term success. She brings lived experience, love, and vision to the Eastside Family Coalition, championing holistic support and generational empowerment.
Danielle King
Danielle King has been a community supporter for 30+ years personally, with her church, and partnering with others willing to put others first. She is the co-Founder of The Divas of Eastwood, LLC, and has been acting (a fool) all her natural born life.
She is an accomplished, multi award-winning actor and singer and has worked in professional entertainment for 40+ years. She instructs theatre classes for all ages and summer camps locally for years and she loves to perform whenever possible. She also believes in the healing art of fellowship and food which has inspired her cooking & baking skills and started her own cottage kitchen “Aunt Dani’s Home-cooked goodies.”
Alexas Ramírez
Alexas Ramírez: Born in unceded Coahuiltecan, Lipan Apache and Estok G’na territories, known as Yanawana (San Antonio, TX), Alexas is a Two-Spirit Guaní (Taino), Coahuiltecan, Guachichil, and Black woman. She says, “I have cultivated a deeper relationship with seeds, birthwork, health and the land through my culture. I believe that through a harmonious relationship with nature, we can begin to restore equilibrium, as individuals, and as a human collective.” She is a land steward, birthworker, a huesera and sobadora, an herbalist, a seed-keeper and farmer, food sovereignty advocate, educator, director and co-founder of the Traditional Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Healing, and Indigenous Land Conservation Council, owner of f l x s: healing-informed support services, and a strong advocate for traditional Indigenous culture. All of her land stewardship and conservation efforts have been received through Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge practices and Indigenous mentors. Her life work is devoted to the preservation and restoration of Indigenous life-ways.
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