By Joyce Dunn
Special to The Dispatch
MORGAN HILL
– Mary Ellen Salzano has the ability to live many lives
simultaneously.
By Joyce Dunn
Special to The Dispatch
MORGAN HILL – Mary Ellen Salzano has the ability to live many lives simultaneously.
She is a wife of 25 years to her husband, Tom. She has two children – Ethan, a 19-year-old Marine, and Julia, a 16-year old home-schooler. The family has lived in Morgan Hill since 1992.
“My family has always been a top priority in my life,” Salzano admits. “However, when I hit 50 (years old), I realized that I wanted to be a writer … a passion I’ve always felt … but with fear and trepidation holding me back.”
The fear receded, and today Salzano writes monthly columns for the Morgan Hill Times. Her articles, she states, are “volunteer” columns; she gets her “ideas by carefully watching the goings-on in the community and assessing how she can best serve the needs of others.”
Service to others is the daily motivating force for Salzano. Bright, articulate and energetic, with a degree in applied behavioral sciences from UC Davis, she realized the significance of “appreciating humankind, not just for their intellectual achievements, but for their more sensitive and spiritual sides.”
Living well, she confides, is a result of “blending the head and the heart.”
Salzano strives to combine the “head and the heart” in her job. As a Century 21 Realtor in Morgan Hill, she attempts to be sensitive to peoples’ needs.She approaches selling in a unique, probably unprecedented manner.
“I want to help people get what they want in a house … in my prayers. … I hope that I can help those that God brings to me.”
Serious but not humorless, Salzano realizes the inherent contradictions between selling and the spirit. A co-worker (who wishes to remain anonymous) once questioned her about reconciling sales with the spirit.
She simply replied: “You may refer to me as a spiritual Realtor.”
“This lady is unique … a very different breed of Realtor,” applauded her fellow worker.
Serving God always heads Salzano’s priority list. She serves even as she sells, but, perhaps more persuasively, she serves God in her community work.
“As a spiritual person in a physical form,” she tries to be receptive and open to community and world events. She is alert to what is going on around her, reads newspapers voraciously and searches for indicators that might lead her to be of service to those in need.
In need of a soothing touch, parents of sons and daughters in the military could use the help of Mary Ellen Salzano. Her son is a Marine. Salzano became a part of a group of a group of mothers with children in the military who call themselves Marine Moms On Line. There are 3,000 mothers across the country who reciprocate in on-line love, support and understanding on a frequent basis.
Salzano has even more “lives” to share and give to the community. She is a Public Information officer for Santa Clara County Neighborhood Disaster Preparation. She
Ardently believes that her ability to communicate through her writing and promote causes such as Disaster Preparedness is nothing more than a “skill … in the service of and ministry for serving.”
Yet another area of Mary Ellen’s resume shows in her service to children. In her newspaper column, she writes enthusiastically about ChildSpree, a community funded program that allows disadvantaged children to go on a shopping spree and buy clothes, backpacks, shoes and other back-to-school essentials. Her column helped make the community aware of this essential childhood program.
Salzano leads a very busy life. That is obvious. Perhaps, though, she can best be summed up in her own words: “There are no coincidences in life … every act we do and every choice we make has a meaning.”
