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Ana Bonilla-Galdamez tells young Latinos that their heritage is a source of strength, their voices have power and they belong in every space. That message is rooted in her own journey from civil war in El Salvador to decades of advocacy for vulnerable students in Alexandria.

Now a licensed clinical social worker and a Living Legend of Alexandria, Bonilla-Galdamez has worked for Alexandria City Public Schools since 1997. She currently serves as the family engagement social worker at Alexandria City High School’s Minnie Howard Campus.

Born in San Salvador in 1971, Bonilla-Galdamez remembers an initially happy childhood spent playing with her cousins. That life was shattered by the Salvadoran Civil War.

She saw bodies in the streets and watched as young men were taken by the military or guerrillas. In one enduring memory, her mother held a white handkerchief on a stick to signal neutrality while traveling through areas of conflict.

The family eventually fled. Bonilla-Galdamez recalled her mother crying during the difficult departure and fearing that her daughter would never return. She did not.

The family arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, in December 1982, when Bonilla-Galdamez was 12. She went from a cherished home in San Salvador to an American apartment and entered school without speaking English.

Classmates mocked her accent, clothes, speech and height. She was placed in an English as a Second Language program that offered limited support, sometimes leaving her unable to understand a teacher’s questions.

Bonilla-Galdamez was also living with learning differences that had not yet been identified as ADHD and dysgraphia. Confusion, anger and sadness contributed to her acting out at school.

Those experiences eventually gave her a purpose: becoming the supportive adult she had needed as a child.

“I wanted to become that person that I always wanted to have in front of me,” she said. “Someone who believed in me.”

She graduated cum laude from St. Bonaventure University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and earned a Master of Social Work, specializing in children and adolescents, from Catholic University. Her graduate paper, “Abandono and Reunificacion: The Silent Tragedy of Central American Adolescent Immigrants,” helped establish the focus of her later work.

Her Alexandria career began in 1993, when she worked as a substance abuse counselor and operated HIV/AIDS prevention programs on Mill Road. Four years later, she started her long tenure with the city’s public schools, serving students at both elementary and high school levels.

Building programs around unmet needs

Bonilla-Galdamez has repeatedly created programs to address needs she saw in the community, sometimes without funding, institutional support or a formal directive.

She founded and coordinates Youth in Progress, a mentorship and support program serving more than 100 Latino and other underserved young people. The program promotes academic achievement, leadership and personal development.

She also developed LYFE, or Latino Youth for Excellence, as a prevention and intervention program for young people involved with gangs and those at risk of delinquency.

Her other initiatives include Panda Soles, which collected and distributed hundreds of pairs of new sneakers to children in need, and Los Padres Hacen La Diferencia, which offers culturally and linguistically responsive training to monolingual Latino parents.

Through Mentoring Matters, she brought leaders from the Alexandria Police Department, Sheriff’s Office and U.S. District Court together to mentor at-risk students.

Bonilla-Galdamez approaches each struggling child as someone with strengths that can be directed and developed. She once explained the transition to high school by telling students that they had been passengers in middle school but would now become the drivers.

Her aim, she said, is to guide young people without judging them. The connection comes from experience rather than theory.

“I understood what they were going through,” she said. “Not because I read it in a book, but it was because I went through it myself.”

A record of national and local recognition

Bonilla-Galdamez’s work has brought an array of honors. She received the School Social Work Association of America’s 2025 National School Social Worker of the Year Award and the National Association of Social Workers’ 2015 National Social Worker of the Year honor.

Her other recognition includes the 2025 Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching and Family Engagement, the 2025 Champion of Children Award and the 2010 Frederic Milton Thrasher Award for Superior Service in Gang Prevention. Her work has also been featured in a profile titled “By Any Means Necessary.”

Alexandria Sheriff Sean Casey nominated Bonilla-Galdamez as a Living Legend after witnessing her work since their time collaborating at Minnie Howard.

“She treats every child as if they were her own and will move mountains to ensure they are supported and seen,” Casey said.

Bonilla-Galdamez brings the same determination to her family. When the school system attempted to place her U.S.-born sons in an ESOL program, she fought the decision.

She lives in Lorton with Walter Galdamez, her husband of 30 years. They have two sons, Tony, 23, and Alex, 21.

Her message to Latino students reflects both the hardship she survived and the future she wants them to claim.

“Please don’t ever forget that you belong in every space,” she said. “Your culture is your gift.”