It’s the Season 1 Finale!

Here’s your chance to meet the super star behind this podcast’s theme song, Hardcore Believer!

Courageous, smart, and ebullient, Courtney Santana joins Co-Hosts Andrea Palm and Aaron to talk about Courtney’s new album, Living Through It All – get this album! We also hear about Courtney’s decades of activism for survivors of intimate partner violence and her harcore resilience.

In a two-fer, this week, you get two final segments.

First, Gamer Corner features Drew Crecente speaking with game designers Damian Hadyi and his daughter Miranda Hadyi Olmedo from 2GEN Team about their award winning game Wasteland of Eloquence.

Last, in the Teacher Hot Tip, Stephanie Yuen (a previous guest and my sister!) offers advice on prioritizing the journey over the goal; how’d she get so smart?

Cynthia Caro built her career on helping victims of violence get safe and helping to hold offenders accountable. As important as those roles are, she still ranks Mom as her most important.

Listen to how she developed an informed point of view in working with offenders seeking to turn a corner and has used many of those lessons learned and core beliefs to inform her approach to that most important job.

In the Teacher Hot Tip, theater teacher Rachel Mullins expresses the true value of learning, working in and enjoying the theater for young people, and, well, all of us.

It’s even more of a family affair this week, with Aaron co-opting the podcast to talk with his sister Stephanie Yuen and her son -- and more importantly Aaron’s nephew, Avery.

Fans of the Healing Arts from the Borderland Podcast may recognize Avery as the sage at the end of every episode offering his unique take on life. He joins as co-host in this episode as Stephanie walks – er, runs – us through her passion for teaching, approaches to fostering empathy, re-focusing young people on process more than the end result, and overall showing off her going-on-two-decades-worth of teaching expertise.

Jessica Malone provides this week’s Teacher Hot Tip: using the romance novel as a method for cultivating healthy self-images of teens.

El Paso’s own media darling, Stephanie Valle, steps up to the plate this week with her daughter Velora as co-host.

A long-trusted source for news, insight and community services, Stephanie discusses how raising her son and Velora required the same and different skills at the same time; how going to work with curly hair actually stands as an example of her own and others’ empowerment; and Velora’s heroics in her latest softball game.

Bringing some international flare, Lucas Vially, from France, joins Drew in Gamer Corner, discussing the video games 'Culture Overlord' and 'Time to Explain!', previous winners of the Live. Love. Game Design Challenge in 2020 and 2025.

This week’s co-host, Luna, joins Aaron in interviewing her mom, the El Paso County Attorney, Christina Sanchez. How does a county attorney help shape boys’ and girls’ healthy self-images? Christina discusses her approach in her own home as well as in her professional life. Exposing kids to travel, mock trial, helping at-risk young people who need it…turns out county attorneys have a key role to play. And then Angel on Street, Vera Chacon, talks the real real when it comes to graduation.

Plot twist – this is our first episode in which the Co-Host and Guest have particularly close ties.

Listen as Ann (and Aaron) cross examines Ann’s mom, Maureen Franco, about key matters like the family dogs’ names and Ann’s perfectionist tendencies. Oh yeah, and hear how Maureen leads a federal public defender’s office larger than most states in a compassionate and family-focused manner.

Angel on the Street Vera talks about her experience in mock trial and how she sees that activity as enriching for all participants.

This week Juliana and Aaron talk with the fun and impactful and brilliant Sandra Garcia. She leads the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence (CASFV) in El Paso – the region’s domestic violence shelter and resource center. Did you know CASFV shelters more children than adults? Hear how Sandra works to support survivors and their children and her meaningfully contributions to the teen dating violence prevention movement. Then, Angel on the Street Laura discusses what it’s like to live in Juarez and commute at 5am daily to El Paso for swimming and school. Spoiler: time management is her superpower.

This week, Ann steps in as co-host. Loretto High School Principal, Nancy Tovar, puts the “pal” in principal, serving as a guiding mentor to Loretto’s angels and seeing herself as a mom to them all. Loretto’s 100 year history fosters a culture supporting the development of healthy self images of its students. Ann weighs in on challenges and the pride she has come to feel in being a quirky theater kid; and this week’s magic wand question yields a book reading assignment and an extemporaneous definition of feminism. Loretto teacher James Causey then serves up this week’s Teacher Hot Tip about the life lessons students learn in participating in mock trial.