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Eastern Riverside County Community Champion Leticia DeLara Honored as Woman of the Year

29 March 2022

RIVERSIDE – Chief Executive Officer for the Regional Access Project Foundation and Desert Healthcare District Director Leticia DeLara was honored by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors this morning as the Fourth District’s Woman of the Year.

Eastern Riverside County Community Champion Leticia DeLara Honored as Woman of the Year

RIVERSIDE – Chief Executive Officer for the Regional Access Project Foundation and Desert Healthcare District Director Leticia DeLara was honored by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors this morning as the Fourth District’s Woman of the Year.

Citing her extensive contributions to the community and public service, her inspiring life story and example as a role model to all, Supervisor V. Manuel Perez selected Leticia DeLara, a resident of the Coachella Valley, for this honor as part of Riverside County’s commemoration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day.

“Leticia DeLara is a mentor, a leader, and a role model of inspiration and achievement, and we proudly honor her as the 2022 Woman of the Year for the Fourth District in recognition and appreciation of all she has done to help the community and as a true inspiration to all,” said Supervisor Perez. “We are very proud of Leticia, what she has done for the Fourth District, what she has done for the County of Riverside as a whole, for the eastern Coachella Valley, and for the Coachella Valley as a whole.”

Leticia DeLara attended the Board of Supervisors meeting with her husband, Denys Arcuri, and thanked her family and the organizations she serves with.

“Thank you Supervisor Perez for your support, for always your support that you have given me in life and the associations that I have,” said Leticia DeLara. “Thank you to my family, my husband who is here with me who is always supportive. I also want to acknowledge the organizations that have allowed me to continue to work, the Regional Access Project Foundation, the Desert Healthcare District and also Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo. They are great organizations and I have been so fortunate in my life to have had great people to look up to, to support me, and thank you for being another one of those leaders that I can look up to.”

Leticia DeLara learned the importance of education and hard work from her parents, Pedro and Josefina, who immigrated to the U.S. from Zacatecas, México and settled in Thermal, in search of a better life for their 13 children. At a very young age, she joined her family working in the fields harvesting produce as a migrant farmworker and spent many summers living in Washington and Oregon, returning to the Coachella Valley each fall to start the harvest cycle again.

DeLara dreamed of helping her community and knew that higher education would prepare her as a leader and create better opportunities. After graduating from Coachella Valley High School, she earned a degree in business administration and a master’s degree in public administration from California State University, San Bernardino.

In 1989, DeLara began 25 years of dedicated and outstanding service to the County of Riverside, working for the Department of Public Social Services, promoting to supervisor and employment counselor. In 1999, she was hired by Supervisor Roy Wilson, and served as Supervisor Wilson’s Chief of Staff. During her service with Supervisor Wilson and Supervisor John J. Benoit, she was instrumental to historic advancements in the eastern Coachella Valley and shaped an extraordinary legacy with her focus on housing, health care, mental health and social services and her efforts for vulnerable and under-served individuals and communities.

Today, DeLara continues to support these services and the communities of eastern Riverside County as the Chief Executive Officer of the Regional Access Project Foundation since 2014. Since January 2019, she has been a director of the Desert Healthcare District serving the newly expanded eastern Coachella Valley area and connecting these communities to health and wellness resources.

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Supervisor V. Manuel Perez represents the eastern two-thirds of Riverside County on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. Stretching from Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs, south to the Salton Sea and east to Blythe and the Colorado River, the 4th District is the largest geographical district in the county.

Supervisor Perez’s office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.