Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | March 15, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 27 100 A June St. Worcester, MA 01602 508.310.5406 www.bestprollc.com Cleaning for Health Disinfecting Coronavirus Service We are open and ready to answer your questions related with COVID-19 . We use approved EPA registered hospital grade disinfectants and CDC recommended personal protective equipment (PPE) are worn at all times by our certified cleaning technicians. All surfaces are cleaned, disinfected, and materials are properly disposed. General Manager, Diana Gallego Commercial Cleaning Office Cleaning Janitorial Services General Cleaning Family Owned Serving Massachusetts Since 1998 COVID Disinfecting & Sanitizing Carpet Cleaning Floor Care Eco-Friendly Green Cleaning Services Electrostatic Cleaning Disinfection Facility Maintenance (landscaping, snow removal, and light construction repairs) COVID-19 H A L L O F F A M E F O C U S up making it harder for someone to stay healthy or make doctor's appointments. It includes helping formerly incarcerated people get their lives back on track or providing addiction treatment in correctional facilities. More recently, that work has included vaccinating the city's homeless and domestic violence shelter residents. Next up is public housing residents. Before the pandemic, Castiel and her office were oen focused on the opioid epidemic, which kills dozens of Worcester residents a year and has only quietly slipped into the background during an even bigger health crisis. "What we've always known is that it's incredibly costly to not provide care to vulnerable populations," Castiel said. Castiel, who previously worked as a family physician, has seen such populations be disproportionately hit before. Early in her career she worked during the HIV crisis. "Something that stays with you for a long time," she said. Castiel's upbringing has stayed with her in a way helping her relate well to those she's working to help. In 2018, she spoke at UMass Medical School in Worcester about her immigration story, along with Naheed Usmani, a professor of pediatrics at the school. Castiel talked then about forging a path for herself oen at odds with what her Jewish parents, who were born in Istanbul, had wanted for her. "We were supposed to be dating and getting married and having kids, and I wasn't doing any of that," Castiel said. She got emotional when talking about the oen excruciating stories immigrants can tell, especially if they've fled persecution or war back home. "When people come to this country, they come for a better life," she said. "We may not have all the background, but they come here and they work and they do some amazing things." e project she was best known for before joining City Hall was creating Cafe Reyes and her work with the Hector Reyes House. Six years aer she's le, her legacy there is still strong. "She always believed in me," said Ricardo Juarbe, a cook at the cafe since 2016 and a Hector Reyes House resident. "Even my family turned their backs on me." Juarbe recalled relapsing once and making a 4 a.m. phone call to Castiel. She showed up – in her pajamas – to get him and get him help. He and others in the program oen refer to her as a mother figure. "She loves these guys," said Jose Rivera, the operations director for the Hector Reyes House, where Castiel will still stop by every Tuesday to help provide medical services. "You can see the difference when she's there," Rivera said of the brighter attitude program residents have when they see Castiel, someone who still regularly checks in with them. "She's incredible. She's like the energizer bunny." Cafe Reyes has been a critical part for program graduates to find discipline, purpose and support. It has meant so much to Edgardo Rentas, a cafe worker, he now splits his time between being a cook and being a case manager at the Hector Reyes House aer getting certification. Rentas was working as a barber and was passionate about that work, but said he wanted to work at Cafe Reyes and eventually become a case manager to help people recovering from addiction to give the same help he got. "at's why I'm still here," he said. Castiel always liked the idea of helping people, she said. Her mom was a homemaker, and her dad had only a third-grade education. In California, her mom worked folding towels and her dad stripped paint off furniture. A high school job as a pharmacy technician gave Castiel her first taste of a career in medicine, and she went for it. Aer college in California, Castiel went to St. Louis for her medical residency program and met her husband. ey decided to go to one area of the country, cold-weather New England, she initially sought to avoid – her mother said during Operation Peter Pan her daughter was allergic to the cold so that they'd end up someplace warm. Nonetheless, 33 years later, here they are. "is is home," Castiel said of Worcester. During the pandemic, Castiel has seen hospitals and health agencies in her new home city work in a more collaborative way, giving her confidence that health inequities could be better addressed post-pandemic. Before, organizations didn't need to work together as critically. "We have a long way to go," she said, "but we've come a long way." W

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