Carolina Quezada took the reins of the Latino Center of the Midlands last August in the wake of its substance abuse program losing funding, executive director Rebecca Valdez resigning and the annual fund raiser being canceled. Despite the travails, Quezada found a resilient organization. Overcoming obstacles has been par for the course since community organizers started the former Chicano Awareness Center in 1971 to address the needs of underserved peoples. Its story reminds her of the community initiatives she worked for in her native East Los Angeles. She never intended leaving Calif. until going to work for the Iowa West Foundation in 2009. Once here, she found similar challenges and opportunities as she did back home. "I've come full circle. I see so much of what I encountered growing up in L.A. which is parents with very low levels of education wanting their kids to succeed, graduate high school and go to college but often no plan to get them there.," she says. "South Omaha is like this microcosm of East L.A. The moment I drove down 24th Street the first time I thought, This is like Whittier Blvd. I felt an instant connection. There's so much overlap. This sense of close relationship with the grassroots, the sense of community, and how the organization has its beginnings in activism, in that voice of the community. It's so indicative of how nonprofits in Latino communities have their base in the grassroots voice and in services and issues having to do with social justice." Forged as the center was in the ferment of unrest, she's hardly surprised it's persevered. "I am pretty struck by how the agency continues to respond,. It's always been responsive to what that emerging need is. I think it's just an inherent part of its DNA." She acknowledges the center was rocked by instability in 2011. "Currently we are in the process of trying to strengthen that stability. Last year was a very difficult year for the agency. There was a transition in leadership, there was funding lost. The agency was still operating but in a very low key way, and I give credit to the board members and staff in making sure the doors remained open. Their passion continues to drive what we do every day. "One of our greatest core competencies is that love for community and that connection to our people. When people come through our doors they are greeted by people who look like them and speak their language. It's their culture. I'm very proud the Latino Center keeps that piece very close to its heart." She says in this era of escalating costs and competition for scarcer resources, nonprofits like hers must be adaptable, collaborative and creative "to survive. "There is much more a need to be strategic. It's not just about being a charity. Now it's about being an institution that takes on a lot more of the business model and looks at diversifying funding sources."

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