Maribel Padilla, founder of the Brown Bag Coalition, places a cool cloth on the neck of a man who sought help from the Coalition during one of its water run stops to support the homeless in the city of Calexico, California, as temperatures on that day reached nearly 120 degrees. Photo by Darren Simon

On a sweltering afternoon as temperatures in Calexico, California topped 118 degrees, a group of homeless sought shelter under trees just off Third Street and Paulin Avenue in the city’s busy downtown a couple of blocks from the border.

They knew to be there around 5 p.m. That’s when a familiar white van from the Brown Bag Coalition (Coalition) would arrive to provide welcome relief – water and Gatorade, popsicles, washcloths dipped in cold water and other supplies.

When the van arrived, Brown Bag Coalition founder Maribel Padilla and her volunteer that day, Jose

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Professor Cesar Guzman (backrow, far left), who teaches citizenship classes at Imperial Valley College and in the community, stands with a group of students in a class he taught at the First United Methodist Church in El Centro in this 2020 photo. Photo courtesy of Cesar Guzman

Fifteen thousand.

That’s how many people long-time Imperial Valley educator Cesar Guzman has helped become U.S. citizens through his work teaching citizenship classes offered as part of an Imperial Valley College (IVC) program and his volunteer work in the community.

Today, at age 78, though retired as a full-time educator, he still works part-time for the college program, volunteers in the community, and serves on a local school board in the city of Brawley, something he has done for nearly half a century.

He’s not about to stop yet. He enjoys it all too much to stop, especially when it comes to

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Gloria Rivera, fourth from left, stands with the current Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors and management staff as she is inducted into IID’s Gallery of Distinguished Employees on Nov. 21. Rivera, who retired in 2019, worked 47 years for IID, as an executive assistant to the general manager and Board secretary.

When Gloria River was a 10-year-old girl growing up in the Mexican border city of Mexicali, her mother told her they would be moving across the border to the Imperial Valley where her father worked on a ranch.

Rivera cried at the news. She didn’t want to leave her friends to start a new life in the United States, but what that child didn’t know was the positive path her life would take, and the sense of fulfillment it would bring her.

Eventually, at the age of 19, Rivera would join the Imperial Irrigation District

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