Coach’s Corner – Paloma Rodriguez

D.E.S.I: How did you come to work for D.E.S.I?

Paloma: I was looking for a job after I graduated from Cal State LA in 2016. I graduated with my bachelor’s in public health, so I was trying to do something community-oriented. I was with D.E.S.I when they were new. They didn’t have what they have now. They had a really tiny office. The food bank was not even a thing. The store was not a thing. I started off working with Liz’s daughter, Desirae, and I’ve been with them ever since.

D.E.S.I: Have you always wanted to help people?

Paloma: Yeah. Originally, I went to school for nursing.

D.E.S.I: What tools do you use to relate to your clients?

Paloma: The client I have now—we have very different interests, so I have to build that relationship. I sit with her and she shows me the things that she’s interested in. Up until now, I had no interest in Pokémon, but she loves it all day long. So I got the game on my phone. Little things like that. Her other favorite thing is Yogurtland. So I tell her if she cooperates with me, we can go to Yogurtland.

D.E.S.I: What successes do you feel like you’ve had with clients?

Paloma: The client I’ve been with the longest, Brissa—I’ve been with her about nine years, just a few years after she finished high school. She had no interest in going to college. No interest in furthering her education at all. And yet now she just finished her first class at Rio Hondo. So that was really cool to see, from no interest—“Don’t even talk to me about school. I’m so done with school”—to now where she’s like, “Okay, I want to take a class.” And she took one of the hardest classes, animation, which was super technical. We had to get a special computer. We had to get a special program. It was really cool to see it come from her and not us.

Brissa was shy, even with her own family. She wouldn’t want to mingle with her own family. She would be in her room. So I’d say, “Come on out, I’ll sit with you. I’ll help you.” And now she’ll just mingle and sit with her family. She’s doing karaoke with them now. It took some years, but now she’s doing good.

D.E.S.I: What have you learned from working at D.E.S.I?

Paloma: Persistence. Definitely. Like I said, Brissa initially seemed disinterested in her path forward. I know college isn’t for everyone, but you need something. So we had her start with volunteering. She really likes working with animals, so she used to work at Petco. A lot of people get discouraged easily, and I think for the special needs community, even more so, because they feel like, “This isn’t something that I can do.” But those are roadblocks and bumps. Nobody’s path is straight.

But now that Desi has all those added services, like the thrift store and the food bank, it’s smaller scale, so I think it’s less intimidating for our clientele. Bri tried that too. She tried the food bank. She tried the thrift store, and she was like, “I didn’t really like it.” And I tell her, that’s okay, because you tried it. You find out what you like and what you don’t, and then we just keep going.