Motivational speaker Señor Chocolate — Richard Santana — was the highlight of this year’s Impact Conference that focuses on developing future leaders.
Brief welcoming remarks kicked off the conference on Oct. 3. In an event sponsored by the Los Medanos College Associated Students, Santana told his story of overcoming personal challenges to get where he is today. He used his experience as a former gang member and his humorous storytelling talent to engage the audience about how mentorship helped him fight his own internalized false beliefs despite the systematic challenges he faced to become a Harvard graduate.
As an example of the obstacles he faced, he shared an encounter he had as an orphaned youth with police who judged his outward appearance. Santana explained that at the moment he was “trying to figure out how ima get out this situation so they don’t send me to another home, dealing with more stress! And guess who stops me?”
He then lightheartedly criticized the irony of his situation, “They pull me up against the car, they go through my stuff, they turn me around and look at me and they say, ‘Why aren’t you in school, boy?’ Well, when I go to school I get kicked out for being in the school, and then when I leave the school, I get stopped for not being in school. So where am I supposed to be?” he said.
Students responded positively to his speech and found his message profound, “Hearing his story definitely made an impact and it was very inspirational, especially for me because I have two siblings on each side. So I have a sibling who was incarcerated and I have a sibling who is actually a probation officer,” Janine LeChaux said. “I know there’s a lot of people in the community that will have the same issues as him and maybe didn’t think that they can attend college but it’s definitely something you can do, you just have to have the right people you know, around you and to be supportive. And so my reason for coming to this conference is because I wanted to make an impact on my community.”
LMC student Milka Ambrosio expressed that everything about the event was inspiring, “College is not just one thing, there’s a lot of options, there’s a lot of opportunities even if you don’t transfer. It can help you build new relationships and then you can have the dream job that you are looking for,” said Ambrosio.
Santana hopes that even those who couldn’t attend the conference, still take to heart what he shared on that stage through their encounters with those who were there. And there is also a generational component as well.
“The main message is all about transformation, how the change that one makes can have a positive impact on the future generations. You know, that’s the main thing” he said. “About how someone who was always made to feel like I could never be, overcame that obstacle and create,” he added. “I guess the overall thing is about change through education.”
After Santana’s keynote, the event featured activities, breakout sessions and lunch. One activity called Guess Who? had students write down a fun fact about themselves on a strip of paper and try to “guess” who they thought each fun fact was about. In the second round was a scavenger hunt, the same groups were given a packet to fill out about the LMC website and the first group that filled in the blanks correctly won.
Most students enjoyed the activities and Sandra Pasley said, “The games were spectacular!”
As the event started to wind down, there was a raffle for the chance to win Stanley cups, and then they served ice cream cups with bowls of toppings.
Student Moriah Modica, who helped plan the event, said she was happy with how the day turned out. “So, most of my expectations were just around foot traffic because this is an event that we take a long time to prepare so we wanted a really big turn out. And from the looks of it, I’m pretty satisfied.”
