First Place–Lexi Hughes and her Dishpan Cookies

Second Place — Erin Crossley and her Cornflake Marshmallow Cookies

Third Place — Melanie Smith and Frosty Cookies

And A Good Time Was Had By All! (Thanks for the photos, Alisa!)

Weekend Counselor Francisco Velasquez, LPC-S, is celebrating his 10-year work anniversary with La Hacienda in 2022

It started when Evening Supervisor Johnny Royer talked with him during a beachfront recovery function in summer 2012. “Johnny told me about La Hacienda, and our friend, Charlotte Safir, and the need for someone with experience working with the LGBTQ+ community. Johnny said that I would be a good fit.”   

“It is satisfying to guide and teach people about recovery and healing,” he says. “Also, in knowing that it is through God’s grace and mercy that I can make a difference in someone’s life and that I am able to be a part of something greater than myself.” He has also taught Sunday morning recovery skills, volunteered to implement and monitor the first NA meeting focused on literature study, implemented the men’s trauma and recovery group and the veterans’ trauma group, and continued facilitating the LGBTQ+.    

His favorite free-time activities travel, being with close friends and working with his hands. He enjoys doing home repairs, furniture restorations, and tailoring his own clothes.  He says he likes to create, make, and construct clothing and home decorating. He also likes planting, growing things, and seeing the end results.

Francisco notes that he has achieved many “firsts” in his family. “I was first to leave home before the age of 15, first to travel to Europe, first to live in two foreign countries while in the Navy, first to be in recovery, first to be open with my sexuality.  He was also first to be interviewed by a newspaper and published while working at Father Flanagan’s Boy’s Town, first to graduate with a Master’s degrees, and first to be a part of establishing and opening a nonprofit outpatient adolescent treatment agency. Milagrito’s Program, Inc. was an outpatient drug and alcohol program for adolescents and their family in San Antonio.