This group of individuals from across the metro came together to serve as volunteers on El Centro 50th Gala planning committee. Everyone wanted to do their part in planning and executing a celebration of service to the community. Erica Andrade says she believes in taking the same holistic approach to El Centro’s mission as its original leaders did 50 years ago. (lower photo)
Now, having worked in El Centro’s top position as President/CEO Erica Andrade for three years, Andrade says she still loves her job because each day is different.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series commemorating the 50th anniversary of El Centro in 2026.
By Joe Arce and Corey Crable
As El Centro celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, its leaders reflect on the organization’s history, and also its future, full of not just challenges but also plenty of potential.
Erica Andrade, President and CEO, has been affiliated with El Centro for much of her life, having been introduced to the organization by accident.
“I volunteered multiple times for the Academy for Children. I was a chaperone when we would take the kids to activities and things like that. I moved to Kansas City, Kansas, when I was 15 years old, and I’ve always lived in Argentine since then. It was right there down the street from our house, so it was the place that people knew about, and I always liked that community aspect,” Andrade says.
In college, she volunteered for the center’s domestic violence program and thought about how she’d like to spend her years after graduation. “There was only one thing I can think about that was going to make me happy, and that was working for my community, working for the people, (for mi gente),” she says.
Andrade called El Centro’s co-director, Ian Bautista, and asked him if the center had any openings. Andrade interviewed with Bautista and was hired to be a teacher coordinator. Although she didn’t envision herself as a “kid person,” Andrade says she fostered relationships with the children with whom she worked.
“I started to hear about their lives and trying to figure out how to help them, because I’m a natural want-to-fixer kind of person,” Andrade says. “And so, and that’s that kind of relationship that El Centro has with its community. It made me fall in love with the organization, ultimately.”
Andrade went on to work as case manager and adult education director later, she recalls, she was given a career-changing opportunity.
“El Centro had started playing with this idea of starting a health navigation program. This is before this was a common trend in all the hospitals. And so they asked me, they gave me an opportunity to go to New York and get certified as a patient navigator,” Andrade says, adding that she started El Centro’s health navigation program when she returned. That role led Andrade to be hired as the center’s Chief Program Officer.
“I was doing a lot of the resource development, like 80 percent of all the grant and writing at the time. I was able to grow the budget, double it within three, three and a half, four years,” said Andrade, adding that although she enjoyed that major accomplishment, she’s always been a storyteller at heart. “And again, it was that storytelling piece. I feel like I understand something to its very core because I understand the community, because I see my mom reflected in that and the needs that she had and the struggle she went through.”
As she continued that upward career trajectory, Andrade says she enjoyed having a friend and mentor in Irene Caudillo, who served as El Centro’s President/CEO for a decade before leaving the organization in 2023. When she heard Caudillo was leaving, Andrade wondered if she should apply to be her replacement. As always, Caudillo had wise words for her.
“’Do I apply? Do I not? I love what I do,’” Andrade recalls thinking. “And then Irene said, ‘This job is just an extension of that. All those things that you come to me and you say,‘I dream if we could do this…’ Now you just do them. They’re your dreams. So just kind of carry them forward.’”
Now, having worked in El Centro’s top position for three years, Andrade says she still loves her job because each day is different – like any job, it has its good and its bad. And she weathers those bad days with the help of her amazing staff.
“We go through these kind of waves, these peaks and then these little declines where things get a little tougher, but especially with El Centro being who we are in the community -- that we specifically serve where we call ourselves a ‘Spanish-first organization’ we know who’s going to be coming in those doors,” Andrade says. “They’re going to have a lot of additional barriers, and it does get really taxing because we also know that we can’t do everything for everyone. It’s impossible.”
And these days, the challenges feel like they’re growing in number during this economic downturn.
“Things have gotten very tough when it comes to food access. And it’s not even about access. They can access the food. It’s affordability. Everything is so expensive,” Andrade says. “So what used to be able to get you by before does not anymore. And then benefits are getting cut. So then that makes it even harder.”
Andrade adds that since the center doesn’t employ attorneys, its employees sometimes are hesitant to give legal advice. But if someone comes in with questions about renewing their DACA status, protecting their home and their family, or the naturalization process, staff share a number of law firms that person could utilize. It can feel frustrating for everyone involved, Andrade admits.
“It’s very taxing emotionally on a lot of the staff, which then makes it taxing for me because my job was taking care of my client, right? The community. Now my job is taking care of my staff,” she says. “That’s the difference. I need to take care of them so that they can take care of the community.”
Still, Andrade says she and her staff feel fortunate when individuals or families return for additional advice, because that means they’ve earned the trust of the people they serve.
“We have a lot of folks that come back to us because it feels like home,” she says.
Even today, Andrade says she believes in taking the same holistic approach to El Centro’s mission as its original leaders did 50 years ago.
“We do emergency assistance, financial literacy, and we have Spanish GED courses that are back again,” says Andrade, adding that the organization has also begun placing a focus on civic engagement as well. “It’s having those bigger conversations about understanding what the community around you looks like so that you can fully be engaged. … We want people to come make this community home, buy homes, pay taxes, all of those things that make our economies run, build small businesses. And that’s what our community does. That’s what Latinos are known for doing. They want to own things. They want to build things because it’s like in our blood.”
El Centro’s 50th anniversary, Andrade notes, is a time to celebrate at a time when celebrations have been in short supply.
“Even when we first started planning it last year, because of everything that’s going on in our political arena and the attack that we felt against our cultura (culture) and our Latino community here for the last couple of years,” she says, “it really did feel like a moment to say, ‘Regardless of what’s happening, … this is a moment to celebrate, to bring joy back, and being open with the joy that we have in celebrating our culture and what we accomplished and the people that we help and being able to celebrate those stories.”
Andrade says that as the 50th anniversary celebration event approaches, she wants everyone to have fun, but she also has a message for those in attendance. “I want them to leave truly understanding the work that we do in community. They’ll have an opportunity to hear directly from the community. And people will share those stories of how El Centro has affected them personally in their lives,” Andrade says.
“I want them to come out there ready and motivated to take action in whatever way they feel comfortable with when it comes to advocacy, being a better partner, being a better ally to not just El Centro, but to other Latinos in their communities.
El Centro will celebrate their 50 years of impact with a gala, on October 17, 2026 at Fiorella’s Event Space 9000 W. 137th Street, Overland Park Kansas 66221.
For more information, visit www.elcentroinc.com.
