The L.A. Trust honors Beutner and Dr. Yonekura at gala

Austin Beutner received The L.A. Trust Visionary Award from Dr. Robert K. Ross of the California Endowment (left) and Maryjane Puffer of The L.A. Trust at the Salute to Student Health. Photo by Rinzi Ruiz.

The Los Angeles Trust for Children’s Health honored former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner and Dr. Margaret Lynn Yonekura of Dignity Health-California Hospital Medical Center at its first-ever Salute to Student Health September 30, 2021. More than 200 educators, healthcare professionals, civic leaders and donors attended the gala online and in person at Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles.

“This pandemic has made the need for student health more apparent — and more urgent — than ever,” said Maryjane Puffer, executive director of The L.A. Trust. “Our mission is to bridge health and education to achieve student wellness,” she said. “I cannot think of two individuals who have done more to achieve this than our two honorees.”

Beutner received The L.A. Trust Visionary Award from Dr. Robert K. Ross, CEO and president of The California Endowment. Ross said, “If you wanted to pick a three-year period to be superintendent, you would not have picked the past three years.” He said, “Austin brought clear-eyed vision — and steely leadership — to one of the most extraordinary moments in our nation’s history.”

Bringing the help to schools

Beutner accepted his award “on behalf of the 86,000 L.A. Unified teachers and staff who work tirelessly every day.” He thanked Puffer, The L.A. Trust Board and staff, and gave “a special shout out” to the evening’s sponsors, including John and Louise Bryson, Shari Davis and Michael Dubin.

Beutner said, “COVID, if nothing else, has proven the importance of serving children and families, no questions asked.” He pointed to the district’s food program, which served 140 million meals, its computer and internet assistance, and massive COVID testing and vaccination operations, among the largest in the nation.

“If there is a theme here, it’s maybe The L.A. Trust was born a little bit before its time,” Beutner said. “The brave pioneers, Maryjane Puffer, your board and staff, were probably shouting into the wilderness 20 years ago, because people weren’t with you yet. I think we’ve shown in COVID that the best place to provide help to those who need it – the children who are the future of Los Angeles, who are in our public schools every day – is at their local neighborhood schools.”

Broadening the definition

Maryjane Puffer presented The L.A. Trust Champion Award to Dr. Margaret Lynn Yonekura, director of community health at Dignity Health-CHMC, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and “the architect of critically needed community health programs, the L.A. Best Babies Network at CMHC, the L.A. County Perinatal and Early Childhood Home Visiting Consortium, the Hope Street Margolis Family Center, the Preconception Health Care Council and Options for Recovery and numerous initiatives at The L.A. Trust.

“I have spent the majority of my working life in Los Angeles providing OB care for high-risk, impoverished and often marginalized women – both mother and fetus,” she said. “When I joined California Hospital Medical Center in 1992 my work began to broaden.

“I asked my patients what they needed; they said they wanted to learn to English, the language of success in America. So we added ESL to prenatal class. Fast forward and Hope Street now provides a wide range of family services,” including Early Head Start, childcare, family literacy, afterschool activities, mentoring, homework help, college prep, family preservation and behavioral health at nearby L.A. Unified sites.

Yonekura said, “I have lived a truly blessed life.” She said her parents left American internment camps at the end of WWII with just a hundred dollars and a train ticket. Her mother and father took jobs as domestics and worked tirelessly to get her the college education they never got. As a child, she told a nurse she wanted to be a nurse too, “but the nurse said, ‘No, be a doctor because doctors give the orders.’”

An interest-free loan from her father’s employer enabled her family to move into the middle class and get her into private school, college and eventually become a doctor. “That is why I try to pay it forward,” she said. “That is why I dedicate this award to those students who dare to dream.”

“The L.A. Trust was proud to be part of the coalition encouraging voluntary vaccinations this summer” said Maryjane Puffer, executive director of The Los Angeles Trust for Children’s Health. “But now our effort to protect our students and families enters a new phase as Los Angeles Unified mandates vaccinations for all students 12 and older by January 10, 2022, unless they have a medical or other exemption.”