Sally Lara
62, Redlands
When the pandemic hit, Sally Lara was working part time as a phlebotomist at Riverside Community Hospital. Lara, who had recently retired from full- time work at Redlands Community Hospital, decided to pick up more shifts to help during the crisis.
Alongside other union workers, she fought with the hospital’s administration over worker safety. They complained that the hospital provided proper protective gear to only nurses and physicians. Lara was at the forefront of advocating for hospital workers across all departments to have equal protection and safety.
Her daughter, Vanessa Campos, said she believed the lack of protective equipment and safety protocols may have cost her mother her life.
As a result of her advocacy, Lara was able to secure a hotel room to self- quarantine when she started showing COVID- 19 symptoms on Mother’s Day weekend. Over the course of the week, her cough grew more intense, so Campos and her brother took her to a hospital in Redlands, where she remained on a ventilator for nearly 20 days. She died on June 8 at age 62.
Lara had always been a gladiator, according to her daughter, who said her mother grew up in a turbulent household with an abusive father. As the eldest daughter of six siblings, Lara was their lodestar.
“She was the fighter of the group. She just would stand up for her siblings or take the hit instead of them,” Campos said. “I think because she came from such a sad childhood, she refused to have that be the way she lived her life.”
Lara met her first husband at Victory Outreach Pomona, a church that specializes in providing housing and rehabilitation services. She worked with women who were homeless and struggling with substance abuse and helped scores of them recover and start anew.
Campos believes her mother will be remembered for the lessons she imparted to others. “‘ It’s all about perspective,’ ” she remembers her mother saying. “That’s the way she would always tell us, like, ‘ You can either miss me because I’m gone, or you can be happy that I lived. It’s about your attitude and how you choose to apply it.’ ”
Besides Campos, Lara is survived by her sons, Tonio Lara and Steven Parque; her husband, Mario Parque; her siblings, John, Doreen, Charlie, and Guy Lara; and eight grandchildren.