![\"Brenda](\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Brenda-Cooke-199x300.jpg\")
Delaware Valley Community Health, Inc. provides a range of medical and dental services to 42,000 Philadelphia-area patients, about a third of whom are uninsured or, because they lack citizenship status, uninsurable.<\/p>\nDelaware Valley Community Health, Inc. provides a range of medical and dental services to 42,000 Philadelphia-area patients, about a third of whom are uninsured or, because they lack citizenship status, uninsurable.<\/p>\n
As vice president and chief operating officer, Brenda Robles-Cooke \u201991 oversees every aspect of DVCH\u2019s day-to-day operations, including capital projects, insurances, grant writing, front desk registration, and housekeeping. It\u2019s a long list, and Robles-Cooke prides herself on being a hands-on leader. She also doesn\u2019t consider what she does work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get up every morning and go to work, but it doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019m going to work,\u201d Robles-Cooke says. \u201cIt just feels like an extension of who I am. It feels like I\u2019m helping people and doing good for the community every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first in her family to finish high school, Robles-Cooke graduated from TCNJ with a BS in business management and received her MBA in health administration from Temple University. She says TCNJ\u2019s Educational
\nOpportunity Fund Program made college possible for her. In turn, she\u2019s paved the way for the rest of her family to get their degrees: Her sister returned to school and became a nurse, and all three of Robles-Cooke\u2019s cousins and nieces are in college and call her often for advice. \u201cI\u2019m proud to be a role model in our family,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Robles-Cooke began working at DVCH in 1995, and by 1999 had ascended to COO. Since then, she has helped DVCH become the first Joint Commission Accredited community health center in Philadelphia\u2014a designation recognized nationwide\u2014and led a\u00a0 decade-long quest to build the Maria de los Santos Health Center, a $13 million facility, which opened in 2008.<\/p>\n
In 2012, the Delaware Valley Most Influential Latinos Foundation recognized Robles-Cooke as one of the region\u2019s most influential Latino leaders. The award was in recognition of her work at DVCH\u2014the organization is the largest healthcare provider for North Philadelphia\u2019s Latino community\u2014as well as her volunteer efforts with Latina girls and young women.<\/p>\n
\u201cI speak to them about having a goal and the choices that they make,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I let them know that it\u2019s okay to always know where you came from, but not let your past dictate your future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Molly Petrilla<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As vice president and chief operating officer, Brenda Robles-Cooke \u201991 oversees every aspect of DVCH\u2019s day-to-day operations, including capital projects, insurances, grant writing, front desk registration, and housekeeping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":9905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-winter-2015"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}