BOARDMAN — For years, Elba L. Navarro had dedicated and volunteered her time, talents and love to a longtime organization that seeks to improve the lives of the area’s Hispanic population and many others.

“If she liked you, she loved you,” Ida Pacheco, Navarro’s cousin, said, fighting back tears.

Navarro, who came to the Mahoning Valley in the late 1940s from her native Puerto Rico then became a longtime teacher in the Youngstown City Schools, died Oct. 27. She was 79.

Navarro’s legacy and contributions to the Youngstown-based Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana organization, were fondly remembered by a few hundred elected officials, community leaders and others who attended OCCHA’s 52nd anniversary gala and fundraiser Friday evening at Mr. Anthony’s Banquet Center, 7440 South Ave.

All proceeds will go toward continuing to fund the organization’s programs, Angelica Diaz, OCCHA’s executive director, said.

Navarro, a 1963 South High School graduate, earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Youngstown State University in Spanish and education. From there, she launched a 30-year career in teaching at Chaney High School as well as Roosevelt Elementary School.

“Her dream always was to become a teacher,” Pacheco said.

Last year, Navarro and her husband, Flor “Shorty” Navarro, were honored for having created more than $1.5 million in endowed scholarships at the YSU Foundation. At the time, more than 50 students received scholarship assistance from the philanthropic couple, according to the foundation’s website.

In addition, an area in YSU’s Meshel Hall was renamed the Shorty & Elba Navarro Commons.

Also, during an event last year at Kent State University at Salem, the Navarros were the recipients of the 2023 Friends of the Campus Award, the highest annual honor the university bestows to nonstudents.

After she retired, Navarro was on numerous fundraising committees on behalf of OCCHA.

The nonprofit organization was founded in March 1972 after a group of Hispanic families saw a need to improve access to resources and other unfulfilled needs in the multicultural community, Diaz noted.

Consequently, the organization has spent more than five decades developing a variety of programs and services to tackle problems areas and untapped needs mainly in the Spanish-speaking community. OCCHA’s overarching commitment is to offer social, cultural, economic and educational programs to improve the lives of Hispanic people and others in the multicultural community, its mission statement says.

To that end, OCCHA, in partnership with the Youngstown City Schools, hosted a summer camp this year that served more than 70 students. The organization also has expanded its workforce program over the past few years; this year’s job fair featured about 25 entities and more than 100 people, Diaz added.

Programs offered include a monthly food and clothing drive, a mental health navigator, senior citizens groups, a Stepping Up exercise offering and Project MKC (formerly Making Kids Count). Also provided are English as a Second Language classes, along with OCCHA’s annual Three Kings Day, which is part of the Christmas holiday in many Spanish countries and concludes with a celebration Jan. 6.

Also in honor of Elba Navarro, Pacheco read a short poem titled “Afterglow” by Helen Lowrie Marshall that she said describes how her beloved aunt would want to be remembered. It reads:

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one. I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done. I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways, Of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days. I’d like the tears of those who grieve to dry before the sun; Of happy memories that I leave when life is done.