Staff Report
Leslie Garcia, Amy Dixon and Joseph Tyson have joined the board of directors of Santa Ynez Valley People Helping People (PHP) for three-year terms.
Leslie Garcia
Garcia was born in Santa Barbara and raised in the Santa Ynez Valley. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in business administration and worked in Santa Barbara for six years before returning to the Santa Ynez Valley as a financial advisor with Edward Jones.
She has teamed with the United Way of Santa Barbara through various programs and has participated in mission trips with Mission Santa Ines and The Ranch Church.
Amy Dixon
Dixon was born and raised in San Diego and has lived in the Santa Ynez Valley since 1998. She earned her bachelor’s degree at San Diego State University before moving to Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco. In San Francisco, she attended California Culinary Academy and earned an AA degree in Culinary Arts.
In the valley, she and her husband operated a dental practice and raised a daughter while she worked as a pastry chef and conducted small dessert caterings. In 2012, she opened The Baker’s Table, a bakery and cafe in Santa Ynez.
From the day The Baker’s Table opened, she has donated its unpurchased pastries and breads to People Helping People.
“My life’s passion is to feed people,” she said. “Feed them from my soul and, hopefully, in the process their soul is fed as well.”
Joseph Tyson
Tyson attended the City College of Chicago and UCSB and focused on journalism and computer science. He is an Air Force veteran and a recent retiree from Raytheon in Goleta, where he was a media manager and senior technical writer and editor for 31 years.
A Buellton resident since 1996, he has been a volunteer for Shelter Services for Women (now Domestic Violence Solutions) and is a member of the Santa Barbara Elks Club and the Vikings of Solvang.
Founded in 1992, PHP is a nonprofit charity serving the Santa Ynez Valley, Los Alamos Valley and the Gaviota Coast. Its mission is to improve the lives of men, women and children by addressing emergency and basic needs and furnishing comprehensive, integrated family and individual support services.
