Dr. Lopez is featured in an Orange County Register article highlighting her accomplishments in the local community, her work with her daughter Isabella Victoria Dominguez, and for receiving the Orange County United Way 2004 Hispanic Influential award. The following is the text of the article:
Friday, February, 20, 2004
Model, mentor, healer, now mom
April Ann Lopez, who tonight becomes one of eight recipients of the Orange County United Way’s Hispanic Influentials awards, thrives on challenging herself. Her biggest test may lie in raising a daughter diagnosed with Down syndrome.
By VIK JOLLY
The Orange County Register
ANAHEIM – April Ann Lopez is in uncharted territory.
But she’s taking on motherhood like she’s faced much of her life – as a challenge.
Lopez will stay true to form when she’s honored today by the Orange County United Way for outstanding achievement and contribution to local Latino communities, along with six others and one organization.
She might not have the words for a rousing speech, but she will speak from her heart. “I don’t know what I am gonna say,” said Lopez, 37.
She’s her own worst critic, a driven woman who’s pushed herself and chiseled out a life with which she is content but not lulled into inaction. If along the way she helped others, Lopez believes she’s really helped herself. When she looks back, she recalls a confused young woman who was determined to make something of her life.
Now, the pieces of the puzzle might be coming together. The one-time runway model never imagined that becoming a chiropractor one day would help a daughter born with two holes in her heart and diagnosed with Down syndrome.
Mother and volunteer
Thirteen-month-old Isabella Victoria is a gift and a source of inspiration to Lopez. “Bella” wasn’t supposed to turn over at 5 months, but she did. She wasn’t supposed to crawl at 7 months, but she did. She’s not supposed to walk soon, but she’s already attempting to stand up.
Lopez, who takes her daughter to her chiropractic office with 11 workers and as many as 60 patients a day, has used her professional skills to stimulate and strengthen her into a vibrant toddler. “How big is Isabella?” Lopez asked her wide-eyed daughter earlier this week. Isabella responded by raising her arms in the air.
Lopez reveals the scar on Isabella’s chest from open-heart surgery when she was a month old. In between patients, she works Isabella’s muscles on therapeutic balls, and the child responds with shrieks of joy.
The zest to cross hurdles changed Lopez from an uncertain, tomboyish girl, with superficial toughness, into a woman with inner strength.
Over the years, Lopez mentored young women incarcerated at a Los Angeles County probation camp. She helped Long Beach’s United Cambodian Community raise $40,000 at a fashion show. Lopez handed out food and gifts as a board member of the Anaheim nonprofit “We Give Thanks.” Married to an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator, she volunteers to support law enforcement, including being the team doctor for the United Way’s “Project 999 Run for the Heroes,” which raises money for families of officers who died in the line of duty.
But it’s her even smaller deeds that catch attention, like buying bus passes for those who come to her office and can barely afford care. She writes off bills for some without insurance. And she sees patients in need on days when she’s shorthanded.
A patient was in tears this week because of insurance problems. Lopez cupped her hands around the woman’s face to comfort her and they resolved the issue.
“She prides herself on ‘You’re not just a number,’ ” said clinic supervisor Matt Barton. “You are a person.”
Path to independence
While Lopez now helps others, in her teens she was the one quietly longing for help.
She grew up as the only girl in a Cypress house with her father and two brothers – taking in meals on TV trays for them, washing and doing the laundry. She played varsity basketball for four years in Arizona, while attempting to live with her mother, a feminine figure she desperately sought. “I grew up like a wife and mother to my family,” she said.
Lopez and her father, Ruben, are very close – a relationship she described as old-fashioned. At 19, she was expected to get married and have kids. Tonight, Ruben Lopez will be in the audience of more than 400 at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, when his daughter becomes one of eight recipients of the annual Hispanic Influentials Awards. “I wouldn’t miss it, not for anything,” said the man who has worked most of his 65 years with no vacation, a work ethic he believes rubbed off.
In her late teens, the 6-foot, brown-eyed brunette strutted down runways as a local model for department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue. A turning point in her life came in her early 20s after being diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which the tissue that lines the uterus starts growing outside of it. She changed majors from business to medicine, to know her body. She broke off her engagement and left modeling.
The past three years have been wrenching. Lopez’s brother died in a car crash, her sister-in-law died from lupus, and her daughter was born with a damaged heart. “I pick myself up and I thank God for what I have in my life, and I have a lot to be thankful for,” Lopez said. “I need to focus more on that than on the other stuff and work and help other people.”
OTHERS BEING HONORED TODAY WITH THE HISPANIC INFLUENTIALS AWARDS
Sister Eileen McNerney
Founder of Taller San Jose, a Santa Ana nonprofit group that provides social services and job training. Sister Eileen has helped mobilize $10.million in community support to address issues of youth, poverty and violence in central Orange County.
Jose and Bengie Molina
The brothers, who play for the Anaheim Angels, are involved in various charitable endeavors and the team’s community outreach efforts, including school visits to promote literacy and area youth baseball clinics.
Dr. Silas Abrego
Abrego, the associate vice president for student affairs at California State University, Fullerton, has been instrumental in the planning and implementation of successful outreach and retention programs. He leads efforts to provide scholarships for low-income and first-generation college students.
Armando de la Libertad
The vice president of community development at Wells Fargo Bank has worked to ensure that his company is addressing the needs of local residents and improving banking services – particularly for low-income residents and those in the Latino community.
Gloria Valdez Lopez
More than 30 years ago, Lopez launched a community center in La Colonia Independencia out of a vacant home with funding from the federal Office of Economic Development and with the help of the Orange County Community Action Council. She has established herself as a bridge between Hispanics in Orange County and decision-makers.
The Disneyland Resort
In 2003, the resort provided more than $8.9 million in financial and in-kind donations, as well as 140,000 volunteer hours. Key programs included the Community Service Awards, through which $430,000 was awarded to 39 Orange County nonprofit organizations. For 46 years, this program has provided more than $9 million in financial awards to local charities.
Source: Orange County’s United Way