Staff & Volunteers

Our staff works hard to make things happen at the Filipino Community of Seattle. They are responsible for ensuring the facilities are well-maintained and welcoming, and program services are delivered to members of the Filipinx community and others

Our Staff

Our staff works hard to make things happen at the Filipino Community of Seattle. They are responsible for ensuring the facilities are well-maintained and welcoming, and program services are delivered to members of the Filipinx community and others.

Agnes Navarro, Executive Director

Agnes Navarro oversees the day to day operations of FCS. She ensures the programs and activities are effectively delivered to the community members and programs are sufficiently funded.  She is an experienced administrator for more than 20 years prior to assuming the position of Executive Director.  She has an entrepreneurial spirit. She has started non-profit organizations here in Seattle from the ground up and successfully received sufficient funding for those organizations. 

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Agnes has a degree in Medicine and has retired from the University of Washington after 31 years of service.  She is currently the Medical Administrator for Seadrunar Withdrawal Management Services, a nonprofit organization offering medical detoxification for drugs and alcohol abusers.  She is the President of Crossroad Medical Services, a medical consultancy business. 

Prior to her appointment as Executive Director, Agnes was a Board Member of the Filipino Community of Seattle for more than 10 years and was once the Director of the organization’s Culture and Arts Program.

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Emma Catague, Program Supervisor/City of Seattle Consultant – ACCESS

Emma Catague was born and raised in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States in the 1970s. A survivor of domestic violence, Ms. Catague has 40 years of experience in community and labor organizing, advocating for human rights, and working for social change. She is the founding mother of the Asian Pacific Islander Women and Family Safety Center, now known as API Chaya. Retiring from API Chaya in 2014, she continues to advocate against domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking with the Filipino Community of Seattle. Ms. Catague, along with Velma Veloria, Sutapa Basu, Norma Timbang, organized to pass Washington State's anti-trafficking bill and served on the first Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force that helped set a vision for a comprehensive response to human trafficking in Washington State.

She has provided technical assistance nationally and internationally to organizations and community-based groups to address gender-based violence and human trafficking. She helped form the former Trafficking Response Team, a partnership with API Chaya and Refugee Women's Alliance, the Washington Anti-Trafficking Response Network and helped build collaboration with government and non-government agencies through the Washington Advisory Committee on Trafficking. She has served as a member of the Statewide Coordinating Committee on Sex Trafficking and continues to provide education on both labor trafficking and sex trafficking in the community. 

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Ms. Catague currently services as the Project Lead for the City of Seattle's Community Mobilization to End Gender-based Violence Pilot and serves as a co-chair with the Seattle Police Department's Community Police Commission.

Senior Services Team

Jaclyn Samson (She/Her)

Coordinator, Senior Lunch Program

Nelia Diaz (She/Her)

Senior Program Outreach Coordinator

Domingo Basanes

Kitchen Helper, Senior Lunch Program 

Cecilia Cabral (She/Her)

Kitchen Helper, Senior Lunch Program

Leonora Nengasca (She/Her)

Kitchen Helper, Senior Lunch Program 

Lolita Lawson (She/Her)

Senior Lunch Program, Food Bank

Merly Claveraz (She/Her)

Zumba Instructor

Helen Williams (She/Her)

Zumba Instructor

Youth Development Team

Haya Muñoz (She/Siya)

Youth Development Program Manager,

Innovation Learning Center

Nhoell Inthavong (She/Her)

Youth Development Program Coordinator

Camille Ungco (She/Her)

Youth Program Outreach & Facilitator Assistant

Thomas Abalahin (He/They)

Youth Staff Associate & FCS Historian

Elizabeth Banh (She/Her)

UCBI Intern from the University of WA 2021 Graduate

Reily Savenetti (She/Her)

UCBI Intern from the University of WA 2022 Graduate

Ania Ty (She/Her)

Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies UC Davis, Asian American Studies Intern from Oregon State University 2022 Graduate

Mari Roy (They/Them)

Youth Program Volunteer University of WA 2023 Graduate

Ashley Villanueva

Youth Staff

Nelson Chen

Innovation Learning Center Staff

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Gender Based Violence Team

Susan Bagby

Outreach Coordinator

Eldred Laude

Lead Coordinator

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Administrative & Operations

Germelyn Pasia

Office Manager

Teresita Era

Bookkeeper

Kin Man Chan

Custodian

Eva Yiu

Custodian

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Contractors

Ana & Larry Simon

Accountant

Juliet Cheatle

Choreographer, FCS Kalahi

Courtney Velasquez

Grant Writers

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Our Volunteers

We’d like to express our profound gratitude to the following volunteers whose selfish acts helped the Filipino Community of Seattle provide much needed services and programs to  the members of the Filipinx and other communities.

Build the Community Plaza With Us!

It's never too late to etch your legacy in stone!

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Memorialize loved ones, honor friends and family, or commemorate special occasions by purchasing a personalized, engraved brick. Your brick will be displayed in our new Plaza. These laser-engraved pavers are guaranteed for life, with permanent ink that never wears away. Best of all, your tax deductible contribution will help complete the tenant improvement of the Innovation Learning Center.