Cesar Gaxiola went from a part-time farm worker to becoming the executive director of the J. Walter Cameron Center. The center includes 24 nonprofits and social service agencies, including the Maui County Office on Aging. The Maui News/Gary Kobota

Cesar Gaxiola was a part-time agricultural worker in Yuma, Arizona when he along with scores of other workers had an offer to work on the Valley Isle in the late 1980s with assistance through Maui Economic Opportunity.

More than 30 years later, Gaxiola who took English and Hawaiian cultural classes through Maui Economic Opportunity along with job opportunities is the executive director of the nonprofit Cameron Center.

The Center provides space for 24 nonprofit groups and social service agencies, including the Maui County Office on Aging.

“For me, Maui Economic Opportunity was my school,” Gaxiola said.

Gaxiola is one of many success stories, as Maui Economic Opportunity celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. An open house was held Monday, with a number of visitors including Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen and Council chair Alice Lee.

The organization started as part of President Lyndon Baines Johnson “War On Poverty” program in 1965, launching a Head Start preschool program aimed at improving educational conditions for low-income preschool children.

It provided employment and training programs similar to what brought Gaxiola to Maui and also senior services, including retail discounts at selected businesses.

On Maui, the group established a Meals On Wheels Program to provide lunches for senior citizens along with a means of checking on their health — a role now assumed by the Kanoa Senior Center.

Maui Economic Opportunity helped to provide a pilot test for a county bus system through working with the county to join its transportation system for senior citizens, the disabled and the poor with the Akina school bus service.

Maui Economic officials successfully testified for changes in policies before the public utilities commission to support lifeline electrical and telephone services for people who were unable to afford these potentially critical services.

The group also started a Basil Project where low-income Maui seniors grow and packaged basil for sale. The project grossed more than $300,000 annually for several years.

Under executive director Gladys Baisa, the group also developed the Maui Economic Opportunity business development center Microenterprise program, helping to stimulate small business entrepreneurs, including low-income and disadvantaged individuals, providing the creation of jobs. More than 2,500 individuals have participated in the Core Four Business Training and 735 individuals have received micro loans, creating some 1,000 jobs, the group said.

MEO chief executive officer Debbie Cabebe said her group has continued some public transportation service in rural areas such as Hana, Molokai, and Lanai.

Cabebe said the group is working with Hale Mahaolu to develop 120-units of affordable housing units in Waiehu.

“The people who came before me really set a strong foundation for us to build upon,” Cabbie said.

“Without that, I don’t think we would be where we are today.”

Gaxiola, who had a high school diploma in Mexico, said he was earning $2 an hour and working 20 hours a week in Arizona.

At a time when many Maui residents preferred employment at newly opened hotels in Wailea, Gaxiola and others from Arizona workers had an opportunity to work for $5.45 an hour and 40 hours a week as at Maui Agribusiness.

He lived in a 100-bed dormitory in Waikapu.

Gaxiola later picked pineapples at Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc, did work preparing the soil for cultivation, and eventually received a commercial license to drive pineapple trucks.

Gaxiola recalled he later took courses enabling him to get his equivalent of a U.S. high school degree and also took English courses at Maui Community College/

Meanwhile, he worked in seven different positions at Maui Economic Opportunity and volunteered often to attend conferences on the U.S. mainland, increasing his knowledge of grant opportunities and grant writing to foundations and also meeting U.S. Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye.

“I probably attended 48 conferences in 11 years,” he said.

“I am grateful to Gladys Baisa and the leadership at MEO because they encouraged me to advance and to learn and to open myself to new opportunities.”