The Garces Family Foundation

Our Mission: The Garces Foundation is a community-based, non-profit organization committed to providing Philadelphia’s immigrant population the healthcare, education, and support to empower them to fulfill their potential as citizens and enjoy the highest possible quality of life.  

Our History: In 2010, a young man named Felipe came to Dr. Garces’ dental office, thin, tired, and dying of thyroid cancer. He had been working at Tinto, his health deteriorating by the day, but he was unwilling to seek care. Years earlier, Felipe’s cousin had been in a car accident and had sought help at a hospital emergency room. Because he did not have his papers, he was deported back to Mexico. Felipe feared a similar fate. 

Dr. Garces took Filipe to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Steve Larson, the founder of Puentes de Salud, helped admit and care for him. For a year, Dr. Garces stayed by his side, through surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment, doing everything she could for him.

Unfortunately, it was too late for 26-year-old Felipe. A disease that could have been treated with a thyroid removal procedure had gone unseen for too long because of limited access to proper medical care for immigrants. Felipe and his community didn’t know where to find the resources to get help or if there even were such resources.

The Garces Foundation was founded in memory of Felipe with the purpose of ensuring that the immigrant community has access to and knows where to find the resources they deserve to live healthy, educated, nutritious lives.

As the political climate has shifted and become even less certain for America's new immigrants, this need has become even more acute, and the Foundation occupies a unique, vital space and contributes to providing this population a badly needed safety net. In service of that goal, in addition to offering low- and no-cost medical and dental care, our Foundation offers English language classes, specifically tailored to aid our students with advancement in their workplace. We believe that empowering this community means more than just delivering services to improve their health. We believe that education, especially language, is crucial to break the cycles that limit lives with tremendous unrealized potential.