Sandra Chavez spent 25 years in the United States Army — serving in Bosnia and Iraq, earning the Bronze Star, and coming home to Colorado Springs with a conviction she’d carried through every deployment: that the people around you are your responsibility, and you do not leave them behind. She holds a Master of Public Administration from UCCS.
I spent my career building units that didn’t leave people behind. That’s all Restoring Hearts is doing — extending that standard to the families, the veterans, and the people in recovery that the system forgot.Lt. Col. Sandra Chavez (Ret.) — Board Chair
Pueblo-based CPA with a Master of Science in Accounting from UCCS and nearly a decade of experience in public-sector and government finance — including roles with El Paso County and Pueblo Water. As Treasurer, Jessica manages dual authorization controls, monthly reconciliation, and restricted fund tracking.
Donors give to the mission. They stay because of the governance. I’m here to make sure Restoring Hearts earns both.Jessica Lovato, CPA, MSA — Board Treasurer
Destiny Reyes brings seven years of lived experience navigating substance use recovery in Colorado’s Front Range communities. She provides the board with a grounded, firsthand perspective on what works — and what doesn’t — for people in the earliest and hardest stages of recovery. She currently works as a certified nursing assistant at a Pueblo County community health clinic.
I didn’t find recovery in a program. I found it in a room full of people who had already been where I was. That’s what Restoring Hearts is building.Destiny Reyes — Board Member
James Nguyen has spent seven years as a case manager and community resource coordinator at El Paso County Department of Human Services — working daily at the intersection of housing instability, substance use, and family crisis. He is Restoring Hearts’ primary bridge to El Paso and Pueblo County’s formal service infrastructure.
I’ve spent seven years telling people to hang on while I find them something. Restoring Hearts is finally something worth finding.James Nguyen — Board Member
Licensed psychologist with more than seventeen years of clinical experience in trauma, PTSD, and addiction — practicing with the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment. Bilingual in English and Spanish, with deep cultural fluency in the Latino community. Dr. Reséndiz oversees all mental health linkage protocols and ensures the warm handoff model is clinically sound.
Recovery requires treating the whole person — the trauma underneath the addiction, not just the substance on top of it.Dr. Marco Reséndiz, PsyD — Clinical Director
JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Colorado Bar licensed. Calvin spent 26 years as in-house counsel at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, retiring as Senior Vice President and General Counsel — spanning nonprofit governance, federal healthcare compliance, and community benefit law.
I spent decades making sure a health system stayed legally sound while serving this community. Now I get to do the same thing for an organization that reaches the people that health system couldn’t.Calvin Mercer, Esq. — Board Legal Advisor
Rev. Tamara Holloway holds an M.Div. from Denver Seminary and has served as an ordained Christian minister and APC-certified chaplain for over a decade. For participants who want a faith-based door into healing, Rev. Holloway is that door.
The church has always been in the business of restoration. For the people who need that particular path, Restoring Hearts is showing up for the people who stopped believing they could walk back through the door.Rev. Tamara J. Holloway — Board Member
Amanda spent years walking the recovery road alongside someone she loves — watching what worked, what didn’t, and where the gaps always were. The loneliness after treatment. The loss of purpose. The silence where community should have been.
She holds a Master of Social Work. More importantly, she has been paying attention for a long time — and she built the organization she wished had existed.
The world has already told these people what they’re worth. Every condition attached to help is just another way of saying: not yet. Not until you’ve earned it. We are trying to say something different. You are worth something right now. Before the job. Before the sobriety. Before any of it. Full stop.Amanda Robinson, MSW — Founder & Executive Director
Garrett’s recovery from opioid dependency was not linear. There were relapses, years of genuine uncertainty. What finally changed wasn’t a program or a protocol. It was someone looking at him like he was a person — not a problem, not his addiction, not someone who needed to earn back his worth before he deserved anyone’s time.
He has been in sustained recovery for over two years. Today he walks alongside people at the earliest and hardest stages of their own road. Not as a counselor. As someone who has been exactly there — and who sees each person the same way someone once saw him.
Everyone told me what I needed to do to deserve help. Get clean. Get housed. Get stable. Nobody said: you’ve been carrying this alone and you don’t have to anymore. You matter exactly as you are. That’s the only thing that changed anything.Garrett Vance, CPRC — Peer Recovery Coach
We don’t ask people to earn care. We give it first and trust that dignity does the rest.