Living her dream

Lali Salinas’ life and career have come full circle.

As the second oldest of seven children, she grew up serving as an interpreter for her mother. She remembers visiting the Steele County Food Shelf and looking up to a male interpreter who helped her family.

“At one time, that was my dream job,” said Salinas, “and now, here I am.”

In March of 2024, she was hired as a part-time interpreter at Community Pathways. The nonprofit formed in January 2020 with the merger of the Steele County Food Shelf and Clothesline. But Salinas has spent years stepping up whenever people needed help with communication. 

After graduating from Owatonna High School, she attended South Central College in Faribault and worked for a long time with the Tri-Valley Head Start program. Now the mother of four beautiful children, she’s settled in Owatonna with her fiancé Cody.

Salinas was shopping at Community Pathways when she noticed Spanish-speaking shoppers had trouble communicating with volunteers and staff.

“I would just pop in and help them out,” she said.

At the time, Executive Director Dom Korbel said, Community Pathways had a growing population of families who spoke Spanish as their primary language. They were looking at ways to best serve Spanish speakers with “respect, dignity, and trust,” so that everyone who walked through the doors would feel welcome.

“There's things we do that are hard to explain when English is your second language,” he added. When Salinas reached out to Operations Manager Zach Roberts asking whether the organization could use an interpreter, Korbel said, they weren’t quite ready to post the job. But it wasn’t long before she was sending in an application.

The addition of an interpreter–and particularly this interpreter–has made a world of difference, Korbel said.

Before she started, about 33% of Community Pathways clientele identified as Spanish-speaking. Today, it’s 43%. 

“We’ve done some things culturally, carried different foods, adjusted our hours, but Lali was the biggest factor” in the increase, Korbel said.

“She is just so talented and so connected to the community. She takes the role of helping people, and it doesn’t matter what you’re here for. Whatever you need, Lali will step in and support you… It’s just about helping people get the resources they need.”

One of the issues Salinas found was duplicate records. Because of the language barrier, new accounts were created when families or individuals only needed to renew. Also, she said, some people didn’t understand the stipend for the Unique Finds thrift store that is also part of Community Pathways.

“They didn’t know they had that allowance to make purchases,” she said.

Salinas spent her early days shadowing employees, learning how applications are done, and getting familiar with what Community Pathways has to offer. She tends to be on the move now, looking for opportunities to bridge barriers and gaps in communication.

“I just like to walk around and see if they need anything,” she said. “Right now, the seasonal families are coming, and it’s great for them to see I am still here. I can let them know what is limited, what has changed.”

Another part of her work is connecting with the community at special events, like the recent Project Community Connect resource fair, to let people know what Community Pathways has to offer–and that its doors are open to everyone.

“It always makes me feel kind of happy to be connecting people with resources,” she said. 

While Korbel expected Salinas to make an impact at Community Pathways, he said she has far exceeded expectations.

“Our sense was, she was going to be great, but this has been even more powerful than we could ever have predicted,” he said. “We are so lucky that she chose us.”