Social Work alum wins state peace prize

by Mary Lisa Russell

Social Work alumna Carol Dela Torre was honored last month as a 1998 Peace Prize winner by the California Wellness Foundation (CWF). As the founder of Genesis Inc., a Fresno-based foster care organization, she received a $25,000 award from CWF at a ceremony in San Francisco on Dec. 4.

The CWF awards the Peace Prize as part of its Violence Prevention Initiative to those people who are dedicated to addressing the causes of violence and for their ability to find resources to create compassionate alternatives.

Dela Torre graduated from Fresno State in 1984 with her bachelor's degree in social welfare and a master's degree in social work in 1988. While attending Fresno State, Dela Torre, along with her sister and her mother, started a group home for adolescent girls.

What began with only six residents, three employees and a budget of $110,000 in 1986, soon turned into a family service agency with an annual budget of $4.5 million.

Today Dela Torre's non-profit agency helps treat and place neglected and abused children in homes. Genesis employs 150 people and shelters 300 children per year and provides a full spectrum of preventive health services that break the cycle of violence in the lives of foster children and meet the emotional needs of teenage mothers and their babies.

A respected and recognized activist among Latinos and the broader community, Dela Torre works closely with businesses and local and state government on behalf of abused and impoverished children and their families in the Valley.

Dela Torre was one of three selected for the 1998 Peace Prize and the first from the Central Valley. Other recipients of the award were Barbara Aragon of Sacramento and Beckie Masaki of San Francisco.