Three Salt River Project employees and one retiree earned top-honors by recently being named 2023 SRP Presidents’ Volunteer Spirit Award recipients for their dedication to help people and nonprofit organizations.

Denisse Delos Santos is a Chandler resident, and Asian Corporate and Entrepreneur Leaders’ volunteer and an SRP meter engineering employee.

Erika Castro, another Chandler resident, is a Chandler Cultural Foundation/Chandler Center for the Arts’ volunteer and an SRP supplier diversity program manager.

The other 2023 honorees are Nancy Brooks of Phoenix and Kim Higgins of Scottsdale.

In honor of the four outstanding volunteers, SRP presented checks for $2,500 to their respective nonprofit partners.

Last year, SRP employees and retirees volunteered more than 35,000 hours to 177 Valley and state nonprofit organizations and donated approximately $64,500 through our Dollars for Doers program.

Denisse Delos Santos

Delos Santos first became involved in the Asian Corporate & Entrepreneur Leaders  after the Chief Executive Officer of the organization personally reached out to her.

He had read about her immigration story in the Filipino American Journal and was impressed that she was Grand Canyon University’s top engineering student in the class of 2019, as well as the first Filipina to graduate with honors in engineering.

ACEL’s CEO invited Delos Santosto join him in supporting the mission to advance the Asian American community by providing a network of resources in professional development, cultural awareness, community service and mentoring.

For the past three years, Delos Santos has supported ACEL as a member of its leadership conference planning committee, vice chair of ACEL’s Celebration Gala and coordinator of numerous networking events.

Erika Castro 

Castro has been giving back to the community for many years. She has taken advantage of the many opportunities available through SRP Volunteers and always happy to go where she is needed.   

The mother of three is actively involved in supporting the Chandler Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee, Chicanos Por La Causa, Arizona Educational Foundation, ALL In Education, Girl Scouts, the Women’s Business Enterprise Council-West and SRP’s employee network group called ¡Hablamos SRP! among other organizations.   

In 2021, Castro was looking to serve her community on a deeper level. She discovered an opportunity to volunteer with the Chandler Cultural Foundation, which is the fundraising arm of the Chandler Center for the Arts.

CCA strives to make visual and performing arts available to the entire Chandler community. Since has served as a member of CCA’s board of directors, she has focused on cultivating new support for the organization.

Castro invites groups to tour the facility, learn more about CCA and find out how they can become patrons. She has also served on the special events committee where she helped provide recommendations on catering, entertainment, fundraising and communication to support key events.  

Finally, Castro serves as a CCA ambassador. In this role, she attended a retreat with other arts institutions from across the country where attendees learned about a new framework to foster more diversity, equity and inclusion within their organizations.

Castro also served on the City of Chandler’s Arts Selection Committee to help select art projects for funding opportunities. In her time at CCA, Castro has made a measurable impact and helped increase the number of patrons providing financial support, as well as students participating in the Connecting Kids Program.   

Castro said she is grateful for the many opportunities she has to help make the community a better place for future generations. Because of the depth and breadth of her volunteer work in the community, Castro is the recipient of this year’s Karl F. Abel Volunteer Recognition Award. 

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.