STORIES

SUCCESS STORY
FELICIA GILES
YEAR:
1990s
Felicia Giles was first introduced to El Nido Family
Centers at the age of 16, shortly after she’d given
birth to her first child, when a woman she didn’t
know came to her bedside and left a pamphlet
describing El Nido and its services. With an ill
mother who died of cervical cancer three months
after Felicia gave birth, and a frequently absent
father, Felicia was looking for
all the help she could get, and
She received her AA degree with a major in
sociology at Southwest College and for the past
eleven years has been employed by Cedars Sinai
Medical Center, achieving her certification as
a Certified Professional Coder (CPC) six years
ago. Felicia’s long-term goals are to operate a
medical coding and consulting business, to travel
(especially to Paris and
to Italy) and to write her
El Nido was there for her.
WITH AN ILL MOTHER
autobiography to help
WHO DIED OF
girls to learn the things
Felicia’s case manager, Sandra
CERVICAL CANCER
they need to know, so
Seymour, came to visit her in the
THREE MONTHS AFTER
they can avoid one day
hospital the next day and with
FELICIA GAVE BIRTH
saying to themselves
her joyful enthusiasm, big smile
AND A FREQUENTLY
“if I only knew.”
and patient willingness to help,
ABSENT FATHER,
she immediately got Felicia
moving in the right direction.
In the two years that Felicia
was an El Nido client, she was
able to go back to school and
get her GED, to learn from her
parent education classes how to
FELICIA WAS LOOKING
FOR ALL THE HELP
SHE COULD GET, AND
EL NIDO WAS THERE
FOR HER.
The life lesson Felicia
wants to impart to her
three children – Chris
(Age 26), Brandon (Age
23) and Lauren (Age 9)
– is to stay focused on
your dreams. No matter
be a good parent, to broaden her horizons with
numerous field trips to various places of interest,
and to gain both insight and confidence from the
counseling she received from El Nido counselors.
From her experiences with El Nido, Felicia learned
that there were people outside her family who
cared about her and wanted her to succeed in life.
how bumpy the road, you have to get up and
keep trying because everyone has a purpose
in life; you just have to find out what it is and
then pursue it. For anyone unfamiliar with El
Nido, Felicia wants them to know that El Nido
has a truly exceptional mentoring program
which provides help to those who need it.
"No matter how bumpy the road, you have to get up and
keep trying because everyone has a purpose in life; you
just have to find out what it is and then pursue it"
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