Scholarship Honor Spotlight: Cheri Fidler

Cheri Fidler has been one of our most important and cherished partners in the work that FACES does. Cheri led the effort to replicate and establish the FACES program in San Diego several years ago, bringing important new opportunities for work-based learning and health careers exposure to youth in the City Heights neighborhood. Since that time, she has also led the effort to innovate the program and expand opportunities for learning and career preparation for other youth throughout San Diego. She has been a valued leader and thought parter in our Coalition, offering guidance, wisdom and insight into new strategies and program development. Her smile, generosity and heart have no boundaries. She has been one of the most important allies in our program’s growth and expansion, working with our Coalition members to enrich opportunities for youth in very significant ways. Her contributions to FACES are immeasurable. FACES for the Future is pleased to announce the Cheri Fidler Scholarship in honor and recognition of her many years of leadership and service to FACES Scholars.
- Tomás A. Magaña, MD, MA, FAAP, Founding Director – FACES for the Future Coalition

Donate to Cheri Fidler's Scholarship for Healthcare!

Cheri Fidler is the Director of the Center for Healthier Communities at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, where she began her work thirty years ago in 1988. Ms. Fidler has extensive experience designing, initiating, managing and evaluating both large-scale community health programs and targeted health improvement initiatives. She co-founded the Center for Healthier Communities at Rady Children’s Hospital in 1996, and has led the Center to serve as the hub for the Hospital’s community health improvement strategies ever since.

CHC and Ms. Fidler have been recognized locally, statewide and nationally for facilitating practical and successful community health programs and for mobilizing individuals and organizations to combine forces to educate and change systems to create healthier communities for children, youth, and families.

Cheri Fidler with program staff at the FACES for the Future Coalition Retreat 2016.

She launched the FACES for the Future program in San Diego in 2009 to inspire youth in City Heights and create opportunities for them to build skills and confidence to pursue post-secondary education and careers in healthcare that would allow for joy and economic security. Through her leadership, the program has grown in substance and reputation with nearly 400 students entering in the fall of 2018, and a series of summer and weekend medical academies serving another 150 students annually. Initially trained as a high school teacher, education has been a major focus of her career and life, whether it’s educating parents and young children, adolescents, staff, her own children or herself.

FACES San Diego students on a college tour.

She is a lifelong learner, who credits some of her most significant learnings and sense of humor and spunk to the four boys she raised. She is also thrilled to recently become a new grandmother and is looking forward to that very special relationship and inspiring the next generation in her family.