Sept. 4, 2011 by Georgia Pabst
Nearly 10 years ago, Jayne Ader and Madeline Gianforte opened CORE/El Centro to provide holistic healing and wellness programs to the low-income, largely Latino community on the city’s south side. The center started in rented space on the fourth floor of the Esperanza Unida building at 611 W. National Ave. with only the two co-directors who also served as therapists.

Ader is a massage therapist who worked at the Madison Street Clinic. Gianforte, a member of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes, holds a master’s degree in holistic health from John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco.

That first year, the center served 600 people, said Ader. From that small start, the center has grown to a staff of 12 and 100 volunteers that last year served an estimated 4,750 people through 27 different therapies and programs that include massage, acupuncture, yoga, Zumba, Nia, ballet and other education and wellness programs for the entire family…continue.