After the horrific Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in 2019, community and county leaders opened a support center in the city to help those victims struggling to cope with the tragedy. But it soon became apparent to many that victims of all violent crimes needed help.
So the seeds for Mariposas Resiliency Center were planted, and this week bore fruit to much fanfare, as it became the first center of its kind in Santa Clara County.
“I hope that with the expansion of services, with more days like today, we can normalize coming for help because there’s still such a stigma around it,” said Melissa Santos, senior director of Strategy and Community Development at Community Solutions, which provides much of the mental health services for the Mariposas Center. “People deserve a place for healing.”
To celebrate the grand opening, the center featured art from students around the county and music from Gilroy’s Brownwell Middle School Choir, with several local leaders and police representatives attending the event, including Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen and Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley.
Previously known as the Gilroy Strong Resiliency Center, the expanded center was rebranded as the Mariposas Resiliency Center. Mariposas means “butterflies” in Spanish, which are meant to symbolize transformation, with the three butterflies on the logo representing the three victims of the Garlic Festival Shooting: Stephen Romeo, 6, Keyla Salazar, 13, and Trevor Irby, 25.
“That is our hope for the center. That it will be a place of transformation, a place of healing and a place of health,” said Rosen at the event.
Gilroy Strong Resiliency Center opened in January 2020 following the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in July 2019. That center grew from a partnership between Community Solutions, which set up a mental health first response site after the shooting, and the District Attorney’s office. It offered counseling, support groups, and other long term support services to those who were affected by the shooting. In late 2020, Rebekah’s Children’s Services, which provides youth-centered mental health and support services, joined the center.
However, the team at Gilroy Strong soon noticed that some victims of other violent crimes would come to seek help. Because it was funded by a federal grant that was meant to support those affected by the shooting, they were limited in how much help they could provide — sometimes referring victims to resources 30 miles away, said Sylvia Mata Amaral, program manager for the new center.
“We didn’t like doing that,” said Rosen. “And now we don’t have to.”
A two year, $1.4 million grant from California Victim Compensation Board will allow Mariposas center to serve victims of all violent crimes alongside those affected by the Garlic Festival shooting. The center also will be adding four staff members to its current roster of six.
The Mariposas center also will provide new services in criminal justice advocacy and case management, which will aid those who might have had their housing or employment affected by a violent crime.
The help will be available to individuals who are undocumented, monolingual Spanish speakers, youth, people on probation, or those who have not officially reported being victims of a crime. Survivors will have access to free mental health support support regardless of income or medical insurance, said Mata Amaral. This level of access is rare, since other service providers may require survivors to have officially reported their victimization or to have sought support though other means, she said.
“It’s already really challenging to take that first step to ask for help or to seek assistance,” she said. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible and sort of as inviting as possible to try to get that support.”
Looking forward, District Attorney Rosen hopes that the center will be the first of three centers for victims of violent crimes spread throughout Santa Clara County, with the 526 Center in San Jose, which was founded after the VTA shooting, being eyed for the next location.