El Futuro is humbled and honored to carry on the impactful legacy of immigrant, educator, and philanthropist Ann O’Bar with a recent, generous donation from the Angelina Merenda (Ann) O’Bar Trust.
Coming from an immigrant family, Ann O’Bar was deeply committed to supporting those who needed a hand to fulfill their dreams. This ethos is directly aligned with El Futuro’s mission to nurture stronger familias to live out their dreams, which we do through providing culturally-responsive mental health services for Latino families. For that reason, when we were contacted by her friend and Co-Trustee Melanie Mitchell, a local Durham-ite, about a potential gift from the Trust to support services for immigrant families in Durham and the surrounding region, we were overjoyed to learn that our mission was a fit.
Angelina Marie Merenda (Ann) O’Bar was born on March 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York. Ann met and married Jesse R. O’Bar, Jr. on October 27, 1956 and followed him to his hometown of Chickasha, Oklahoma, where they built a life filled with family, friends, and deep involvement with their community.
Ann worked for over 45 years in the educational field, with a particular focus on supporting Native American families in her region. Her first teaching position was in 1967 working with kindergarten Head Start children in Chickasha Public Schools. She continued her work with Head Start for over 20 years, teaching, training, becoming Director of Washita Valley Head Start, President of the Oklahoma Head Start Association and a longtime member of the National Head Start Association Board in Washington, DC.
Following her work with Head Start, beginning in 1987, Ann then served as project director/associate director at the University of Oklahoma’ s Center for Child and Family Development and was named director emeritus for the center. Here she developed the Growing Up Strong program for classroom use with young children. She also served as a member of the Oklahoma Department of Human Service’s Child Care Advisory Committee for over 30 years to improve services to young children and their families.
Throughout her career Ann was an exemplary consultant and advocate for early childhood education at local, state, national, and international levels. She established the Merenda-O’Bar Scholarship for students who wanted to be teachers of young children. She was honored with the Outstanding Service Award and was a long time, active, and honored member of Delta Kappa Gamma.
She passed peacefully on February 22, 2020 while living at Legends Memory Care in South Oklahoma City.
We are beyond grateful for the life and legacy of Ann O’Bar, and to her Trust for the generous donation to support our work with Latino families.
Alvely Alcántara, LCSW
Rossy C. Garcia, MEd 
Katy Sims, MD 
Everardo Aviles, LCSW, LCAS (Eve)
As a medical anthropologist and social work researcher, Dr. Gulbas’ research embodies interdisciplinarity through the integration of applied theories of health and human development with qualitative and ethnographic methodologies. Her work seeks to understand how people—children, families, and providers—navigate complex sociocultural landscapes in the pursuit of mental health. Most of her work, to date, focuses attention on developing more robust interpretations of suicide risk. With funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health, this body of research has contributed to advancements in theoretical and empirical knowledge of the broader contexts within which youth suicide risk is situated. 
R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez is a developmental psychologist and an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez is the principal investigator of a study that examines the impact of immigration-related threat and stress on school communities. She earned a PhD in developmental psychology from Columbia University and hold a BA in human biology from Stanford University. Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first gen college student.
Dr. Parra-Cardona is an Associate Professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work (SHSSW) at the University of Texas at Austin. At the SHSSW, he serves as Coordinator for Mexico and Latin American initiatives. He also serves as Area Director for Research at the UT Austin Latino Research Institute. Dr. Parra-Cardona’s program of research is focused on the cultural adaptation of evidence-based parenting interventions for low-income Latinx populations in the US and Latin America.
Bianka Reese, PhD, MSPH is a research scientist and program evaluator specializing in adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health. Her previous research in the experiences of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth stems from her work as the Research and Evaluation Manager at SHIFT NC (Sexual Initiatives For Teens), where she led largescale evaluations of multilevel, community-based sexual health promotion initiatives and research projects aimed at elevating the voices of diverse youth in North Carolina. Dr. Reese is currently the Senior Research Strategist at Creative Research Solutions, LLC, an award-winning national evaluation, research, and assessment firm.
Tania Connaughton-Espino, MPH is an independent researcher focused on adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health. Her interest in the experiences of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth stems from her previous work with SHIFT NC (Sexual Initiatives For Teens), where she led the training and evaluation department, conducted capacity-building workshops for youth serving professionals including on the topic of how to be more affirming of LGBTQ youth, and from her extensive experience working with the Latinx population in NC.
Maru Gonzalez, EdD is an Assistant Professor and Youth Development Specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University. Her areas of inquiry include youth development with a focus on activism, social justice, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ young people across familial, school, and community contexts. 
Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, PhD
Hector Y. Adames, PsyD