Young & Healthy Pasadena Executive Director Ellen Kramer and Honoree Dr. Sanaz Fereshteh at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Young and Healthy Pasadena Board Members Dana Jones, Wende Headley, Leonard Kim, Chelsey Overstreet, Mary Ellen Sather, Nancy Stiles, Marjorie Diaz, Carrie Walker, Young & Healthy Pasadena Executive Director Ellen Kramer, Lora McManus, Angel Reyes, Ryan Swerdloff, Mark Chase, and Mimi Orth at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Tim Hartley and Pasadena Councilmember Jason Lyon at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Sarah Nolan and Mark Chase at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Ana Sufuentes, John Geiger, and Marjorie Diaz at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Mizonna Swerdloff and Deborah Clark at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Shalom Staub, Stuart Leibsohn, and Susan Leibsohn at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Medellin Gastelum and Amaralys Gastelum at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Lisa Barrios, Joseph Izaguirre, Ryan Swerdloff, Liz Arnold and Leonard Kim at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Terika and Paul Kurkjian at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Young & Healthy Pasadena Executive Director Ellen Kramer, Lorna Miller, and Don Miller at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Patric and Marsha Dawe at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Sandi Mejia, Mary Donnelly Crocker, and Darrell Done at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Kaya Haig and Kate Good at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Curtis and Mary Ellen Sather at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Leonard Kim, Carol Ann Warren, Steve Warren, and Tiffany Kim at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Raul and Leslie Vasquez at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Perry and Zoe Vidalakis at Young & Healthy Pasadena's 35th Anniversary Celebration held at Santa Anita Park's Chandelier Room [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now].
Dr. Sanaz (Sunny) Fereshteh with her J. Donald Thomas Award for her dedication, perseverance, and selfless devotion to the well-being of Pasadena’s children. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
Deborah Clark, the keynote speaker at the 35th anniversary celebration of Young and Healthy, was in a bad spot. Born to Korean parents, she was adopted by an American couple as a young child, and eventually enlisted in the US military.
As she told the audience in the packed Chandelier Room at Santa Anita Park Saturday evening, when her tour of duty ended, she was astonished one day to find that her identity had been completely hacked.
With the loss of her identity and records, her world fell apart. Unable to recover her records and without any existing records, she was sinking deeper and deeper into a financial and emotional hole.
And her children needed medical and dental work. How would she pay for that?
Enter Young & Healthy. The Pasadena nonprofit helped her acquire and navigate through health insurance, and arranged medical and dental care for her children.
They helped her put her stolen life back together. And she is just one of thousands of cases over the years.
As Executive Director Ellen Kramer explained, “Young and Healthy has been in the Pasadena community all this time connecting underserved children, low-income children, vulnerable children with essential medical, dental, and mental health care.
Their partnership with USC Ostrow School of Dentistry is now over 30 years old, she said.
“They have been coming into our community with their mobile dental vans and these amazing dental professors and their students and helping hundreds of children with their oral health of course,” said Kramer.
“We know that one of the leading causes of children not going to school is dental pain and dental disease,” she continued. “And so this is a critical link in being able to get them back into their homes and schools and communities and flourishing. We are grateful for that.”
The evening honored Dr. Sanaz Fereshteh, director of the USC Mobile Dental Health Clinic, and known by friends and colleagues as “Dr. Sunny,” with the J. Donald Thomas Award.
Said Dr. Sunny, “I feel lucky to be a part of it. This partnership, if we didn’t have it, we wouldn’t be able to have these mobile clinics. We wouldn’t be able to serve [and I am] so incredibly grateful to Young and Healthy for this 30 year partnership, which is unreal to imagine.
Dr. Sunny emphasized the value of something as basic but important as dental care.
”It’s incredibly rewarding not only to take care of these kids that need us often in order to avoid missing school, but also it’s really rewarding in order to be able to show the dental students how they can give back and how they can provide service to the communities they serve.” So it’s all around really gratifying.
“Dental care can be traumatic,” she acknowledged, saying, “We have a mix of patients, ones that have never seen a dentist or ones that have seen a dentist, but didn’t have the best experience. So sometimes we’re working our way backwards to get them back to trusting us, and it’s one of the most incredible things to see that relationship form with kids and the dental students that we work with.”
Young & Healthy was created in 1990 as a small group of 19 physicians who agreed to donate their time and services to Pasadena area children who lacked access to medical and dental care.
As Dr. Sunny told the guests, “I’m really looking forward to another 30 years. And I’m just truly honored and grateful to all of you for making this happen and keeping us alive.”
More information about Young & Healthy is available at YHPasadena.org. (626)795-5166.
