Ruby Award winners announced
EL CENTRO – The Soroptimist International club of El Centro recently announced the three local winners of the organization’s Ruby Award, which recognizes non-member women who assist girls and women in the community.
This year’s winners include Oreda Chin, Imperial Valley Cancer Support Center executive director; Dixie Krimm, Imperial Valley College academic systems specialist; and Lupe Rodriguez, House of Hope program manager.
The award is named in honor of the late Ruby Lee Minar, the international federation’s first president, and represents the wisdom, importance, vitality, strength, power and love that recipients exemplify.
“It was nice that we recognized the diversity in women that we have,” said Rosie Blankenship, president of SI of El Centro. “(The winners) really have all the characteristics that we look for in a Ruby Award winner.”
While this year also marks the local club’s 80th anniversary, its third annual award reception and charity event, Wine, Women and Dessert, was initially postponed and subsequently canceled on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plans now call for the club to recognize the three award recipients, as well as organization’s Live Your Dream program scholarship recipients, at the following year’s event.
The Ruby Award came as something of a surprise as well as an honor for Chin, who relocated to the Valley from San Diego about five years ago and soon found herself volunteering with local organizations as a way to give back.
“I’ve never been in small city before and it’s very easy to embrace things in the community, and I did because there’s so much need,” Chin said.
As executive director of the Imperial Valley Cancer Support Center, formerly known as Between Women Inc., Chin was instrumental in expanding its services to include male cancer patients and survivors.
Chin is also the Valley’s sole certified breast prosthesis fitter and worked with the American Cancer Society to have the Brawley-based IVCSC serve as a wig bank for the Northend.
The Brawley resident has an extensive background in communications, human resources and customer service, which have served her well in her local volunteer and charitable efforts, which include serving on committees and commissions for the county Area Agency on Aging and the Imperial County Transportation Commission.
“That’s just what I like to do, is help,” Chin said. “I can’t sit still – I’m a people person.”
As someone who has grown accustomed to working behind the scenes on behalf of the campus community without much fanfare, Krimm said she was especially honored by the Ruby Award selection.
“It’s hard to find glamour in the grunt work,” Krimm said.
Which is not to say Krimm’s 20-plus years with IVC haven’t brought the Bay Area transplant any satisfaction. After having originally been employed with its child development department, where she provided classes for foster youth and parents, Krimm has worked with the campus’ academic services department for about the past 11 years.
In her current capacity, she works closely with its student services department and faculty to ensure curriculum and programs receive state approval and are serving the students well.
Krimm’s role is to provide logistical support, including helping administer a Hispanic-Serving Institution grant that helps enhance student retention and the teaching experience.
Her community involvement outside the campus includes leading a Girl Scout troop made up of fourth- to sixth-graders, and participating in last year’s Dancing With the Stars gala, which helped raised funds for the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program Community Foundation.
“It was a fun fundraiser to help with,” the El Centro resident said. “I’m down for that.”
For her part, Rodriguez said the Ruby Award only serves to further validate her longtime commitment to serving the community, and especially its less fortunate and vulnerable members.
That commitment was evident throughout her decades-long career with IVROP and while managing the organization’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program that provided adult participants with vocational training for potential employment as Class A truck drivers, certified nursing assistants, pharmacy technicians and security guards.
After obtaining her teaching credential, Rodriguez, who had served as chief photographer at Naval Air Facility El Centro from 1980 to 1990, began teaching IVROP photography classes to high school students who needed credits to graduate.
“A lot of them fell in love with photography,” Rodriguez, of Calexico, said.
She is also credited with helping found the Imperial Valley Unity Coalition in 2016, which helps raise awareness about human trafficking in the area.
The coalition has been successful in hosting summits in the past, as providing services and resources for three victims of sex and one victim of labor trafficking who
were discovered in the Valley last year.
“We did what we could but we know there are more,” Rodriguez said.
The recent cancellation of the local Soroptimist club’s signature fundraising event had the potential to restrict scholarship funds for the organization’s Live Your Dream scholarship recipients, said Blankenship.
The program awards scholarships of $1,500, $1,000 and $500, and is open for Valley students 18 and older who are accepted to institutions of higher learning.
Luckily, the sponsors remained committed to their donations in spite of the event’s cancellation, thereby securing the funds for the philanthropic organization’s future use.
“The support that I have received has been overwhelming,” Blankenship said.