Lillian Trillo

Lillian Trillo was an activist. She wanted to lift us all up, starting with those most in need. Serving as a public health nurse, a community college professor, a nun for a time, a charity founder, she didn't waste a day of her 94 years. Lil was born and raised in Oakland, California in 1928 to immigrant parents from M‚xico. While she and her brother Victor climbed trees, her mother Mary Giner worked in the Del Monte Cannery and her father Jos‚ Trillo worked at the Southern Pacific Railroad. She attended St. Mary's Grammar School and Holy Names High School. Following her mother's dreams, she pursued nursing, graduating from St. Joseph's College of Nursing in San Francisco and then the University of California Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science. She was the first person in her family to go to college, and one of the first Chicanas to graduate from Cal. She worked in many locations as a bilingual public health nurse in the Bay Area, including Alameda County Public Health, San Leandro Schools, Santa Clara County Health Department - Migrant Health, and eventually Oakland Visiting Nurses as a supervisor. She was especially proud of having the opportunity to work on the frontlines (public schools) of the polio field trials in the 1950s, and in Gilroy, setting up a health clinic for Chicano farm workers. Lil was an adventurer. In 1956, she saved up money to travel across Europe for 6 months in a VW Bug with her good friend Jill. A few years later, she went by herself to Mexico City to take courses at Universidad Aut¢noma de M‚xico to strengthen her Spanish, and to support her work as a nurse in Mexican America communities and as an educator at Chabot College. Then in 1960, she decided to move to Michigan to become a nun, joining the famed, feminist "Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" community in Monroe, Michigan. While exploring her faith at the convent over the next two decades, she continued her work as an outreach nurse in some of the poorest communities of Detroit during the day, while teaching her fellow sisters Spanish and personal care in the evenings. Meanwhile, she was encouraged by the leaders of The Immaculate Heart of Mary (several of whom held PhDs) to pursue graduate studies, obtaining her Master of Science at the University of Michigan. During her graduate studies she wrote papers on such topics as, "Sex Education: A Slippery Ball," surveys of health curricula in schools, and "Cross-Cultural Patterns of Health Practices Among Americans and Mexican Americans in the West." In the 1980s she decided to leave The Immaculate Heart of Mary, returning to the East Bay, where she took up roles as a public health nurse and educator once more. During this time, she was diagnosed with, and successfully survived, two bouts of lymphoma. Ever restless and looking to make a significant difference in people's lives, in 1992 she founded LACA (The Latin American Community Assistance Foundation), "a non-profit charity dedicated to improving the lives of the rural poor in Latin America." This organization is dedicated to meeting the urgent healthcare needs of the poorest communities, as well as long-term investments in education in 7 Latin American countries. When asked about the source of her inspiration, Lil explained, "The Lord gave me a match and told me to light the fuse. Then LACA took off like a rocket!" She was the recipient of many honors and awards, including: the Kappa Phi Kappa Honor Society at the University of Michigan, the Outstanding Employee Award by Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, the Wow (Wonderful Older Woman Award) by the Older Women's League, the Paul Harris Fellow granted by the Rotary Foundation, and the Holy Names High School Alumnae Association Distinguished Achievement Award. If she thought someone needed help, she would help them. If she thought someone was being hurtful, she would tell them. If she thought a rule was unjust, she organized and got it changed. Lil was courageous. She was also a joker, storyteller, and talker. Lil could talk anyone into becoming an activist. She leaves behind her niece Linda (Warren) Ware, great nieces Amy Ware and Laura Ware, great grandniece Sophia Ware, Cousin Karleen Pendleton Jim‚nez, close friends Rosalinda Tovar, Rita Vicencio, Esther Martinez, Sheila Mcalinden, Joan Lewis, Dolores Downing, Dotty Gonsalves, Kathy and Kevin Sheil, Jesse Canchola, and the entire team at the LACA Foundation. She was a loving aunt, cousin, godmother, sister, daughter, a great friend, and Madre to us all. Donations can be made to the LACA Foundation https://mylaca.org/donate.htm