PCT Honors will happen on June 3rd at the Mildred Owen Concert Hall. The amazing program identifies and thanks wonderful local people for their service to our community while serving as a fundraiser for our TV station. For more information on tickets and the program, check out our event page.

Here is a spotlight for some of the honorees we will be celebrating this year.

Rita Mancera

Rita Mancera Hernandez was born in Mexico City and grew up in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. She comes from a small family that values education, hard work and family time. Her experience with non-profit organizations goes back all the way to her teen years.

Rita’s previous work with the YMCA of Mexico and the Latin American and Caribbean Alliance of YMCAs gave her a foundation for understanding the many challenges and strengths of North, Central and South America, an introduction to poverty, inequality and immigration, and a taste for the results of collaboration among agencies.

However, it has been her ten years of living in Pescadero and her relationships with local immigrant friends and neighbors (as well as with community leaders and mentors) that opened her eyes to a different implication of immigration. She has seen poverty right next door to wealth, injustice in labor practices and the challenges and opportunities of living in an isolated rural community such as the South Coast.

Rita joined Puente in 2006 with responsibilities for home visiting families with children ages 0-5 to talk with parents about early childhood development. Later she became Puente’s Community Builder with the primary goal to create programs that would introduce the Latino and the Anglo community to each other. For four years she served as Puente’s Program Director overseeing a diversity of programs from immigration to physical activity to education and youth leadership. She is currently Puente’s Deputy Executive Director where she is responsible for integrating all aspects of Puente’s programs and activities, including grant writing, fundraising and budgeting.

Rita’s goals for the community are to continue closing the gap in education for children, youth and adults, increasing services so youth can succeed academically and personally in the 21th century, expanding the development of local leadership and supporting local individuals and families to move out and stay out of poverty.

Rita lives in Pescadero with her husband Jim and son William.

For more information about Puente de la Costa, visit MyPuente.Org

Steve Brown

Steve Brown has enjoyed a career in media, film production and the music industry for over 50 years. Before even graduating from high school, he became a production assistant for broadcasting legend Don Sherwood in 1961 at KSFO.

His military career included two tours in VietNam with the Navy Operations film crew, supplying music to ships in the Pacific Fleet, and concurrently establishing San Diego's first album-oriented rock station KPRI FM as "O.B. Jetty" in 1968.

Rock and roll brought him back to the Bay Area in 1969 as a DJ at KSJO-FM in San Jose, followed by a stint as the head album buyer for the successful Record Factory chain.

Brown worked for the iconic rock band The Grateful Dead and served as production and post production assistant for 1974's The Grateful Dead Movie. He worked on numerous world tours for both The Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band.

His two stints at Pacifica Community Television have been acclaimed and prolific. During the 80s, he served as Production Manager, overseeing 15 hours a week of local programs. Since 2004, he has co-produced and worked on varied programs such as Pacifica Currents, Footprints of Pacifica, Laugh Locally, Wavelength, The Bruce Latimer Show, the annual Pacifica Garden Tour and Earth Day; and the Soundwaves Xmas fundraiser specials.

Brown produced the documentary Song of Viet Nam, the Bonnie and Clyde drama The Barrow Gang, as well as several music videos, documentaries, and live performances. He has presented three annual "Steve's Flashback Jam" events, showcasing 40+ years of personally-filmed live performances and interviews.

He also curated the 2015 "History of Surfing in Pacifica" exhibit at the Pacifica Historical Society's Coastside Museum, and recently shot a documentary on the 72-foot mural on Crespi Drive and even did some of the painting.

 To watch Steve's work on the Pacifica Earth Day 2015 and The Bruce Latimer Show, check out PCT's You Tube Page Here!