Maria Josefina Ahumada passed away Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at Peppi's House at the age of 77. Josefina came to Tucson from Los Angeles with a fresh master's in social work at Tucson East Community Mental Health Center. After about a year she was hired at Kino Hospital, where she and Chief of Psychiatry Dr. Jose Santiago developed multicultural teams to work with patients away from the hospital in the community. Her professional life then involved supervising mental health services and teaching.

In 1999, she joined Arizona State University's School of Social Work, teaching, and mentoring students at its Tucson site for 20 years. Active in South Tucson, she helped establish the Southside Worker Center for day laborers on the grounds of Southside Presbyterian Church. Since retirement in 2019, she's continued to mentor social work interns and serve on the board for the Southside Worker Center.

She chaired the YWCA Board, moderated the Presbyterian Church, Presbytery de Cristo. Fina was also the lay Pastor of the Papago United Presbyterian Church in Sells, and she organized a multiple-week Senior Pride Program for the older LGBTQ community.

Among the many rewards she received were the Richard Elias Legacy Award, Champions for Children and Families, Adelante Nuestro Futuro Conference, National Association of Social Workers Lifetime Achievement Award in addition to several other awards from NASW and YWCA.

In retirement, Josefina passed on wisdom, knowledge, skill, and experience from her life in social work, teaching management, leadership, social justice, activism and spiritual guidance.

Josefina is survived by her stepson, Jack (Mary) Battiste; four nephews, Jose "Skipper" Ahumada, Jerry (Velvet) Ahumada, David D (Lenee) Ahumada, David A (Suzie) Ahumada; three nieces, Lori Ahumada, Pattie (Rod) Brower, Theri (Luis) Reyes; and sister-in-law, NancyLee Ahumada.

She was preceded in death by her beloved wife, Helen Battiste; her parents, Benjamin and Carmen Ahumada, and her brothers, Benjamin Ahumada, Jr., Manuel "Buddy" Ahumada, and Feliciano "Channy" Ahumada.

Service of Witness to the Resurrection for Josefina Ahumada is February 10th at 10:00am at Southside Presbyterian Church, 317 W 23rd St., Tucson, AZ 85713. To honor Josefina, please make donations to either Southside Worker Center with checks payable to Southside Presbyterian Church (Southside Worker Center on memo line) or Papago United Presbyterian Church, P.O. Box 158, Sells, AZ 85634.

We'd like to leave you with this thought-provoking quote from Fina: "Sacrifice is part of life. Own it. Become enraged is you see injustice but channel it toward change."