Marcie Davis rolls into Hotel Santa Fe with her loyal service dog Whistle, and everybody knows her. They greet her with a smile, sometimes a hug, tell her about all the good things in their lives and ask her questions.

"Did he graduate last night?" somebody asked her of Whistle, referring to the Assistance Dogs of the West graduation, held in mid-May.

"Oh, no," Davis replied with a smile. "He graduated three years ago."

Davis, founder of Soulful Presence, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit, calls herself an empowered person with a disability, and she wants to make others feel the same.

"That's what we're really about — trying to have people have that concept that there are no limits," Davis said as she sipped on a cool glass of iced tea at her usual table. "They have the abilities to do what they want to do."

The mission of Soulful Presence, according to its website, "is to empower underserved populations by creating awareness and advancing policy, research, education and social action."

Reaching out

Soulful Presence "was always in us," Davis said. "I think it's always been there."

In 2008, Davis developed the nonprofit organization when she thought that her for-profit business, Davis Innovations, was not reaching everybody she wanted to reach.

"We felt like there were some things that we could contribute and the best way to do that was to set up a nonprofit," Davis explained, noting that her for-profit business is a consulting firm that works with local nonprofits and local government to help develop programs that focus on social justice.

"We know that New Mexico has plenty of nonprofits, but we felt this was something that hasn't been done — trying to make life better for that target population."

Those are people with disabilities, children and most recently, senior citizens.

One of the first things Soulful Presence did was establish the Cissy Vargas Scholarship in Taos. Vargas, 60, has Down syndrome; her family wanted help establishing a scholarship for a Taos High School graduate who planned to study special education and come back to teach in Taos.

The scholarship, which Vargas herself gives out at graduation, is now worth $2,500 and is awarded to one student.

Cissy "got to give the award last year and it was such a pretty certificate that she didn't want to give it away," Davis said with a smile. Vargas will give the award again this year, and Soulful Presence has made a special certificate for her so she won't feel bad about giving it away.

The second thing Soulful Presence began to focus on was preventing violence against people with disabilities. Davis met and worked with Jenny Sanborn, an IMPACT Personal Safety Instructor who now volunteers for Soulful Presence, to develop a personal-safety course for people with disabilities.

Soulful Presence develops programs and services as it goes along by "listening to the needs of all the participants in the community," Sanborn said. Davis takes every opportunity to forge relationships and create partnerships. For instance, at a visit to Craig Hospital in Denver, where she goes for rehabilitation, she asked about possible donations of wheelchairs for people who can't afford them.

"The next thing I knew I was in their warehouse room, and we were loading up wheelchairs in my van," Davis said.

Acting globally

The whole world is Davis' community, she said. That's why Soulful Presence partners with local nonprofits and those abroad. Recently, the organization partnered with Hope International for Tikar People, which was founded by Issa Nyaphaga. Together, the organizations help provide medical care and equipment to people with disabilities in Tikar, a remote village in Cameroon, Africa.

Sanborn and Nyaphaga will travel to Cameroon on June 20 to deliver supplies. They also provide all-terrain, three-wheel wheelchairs that are made in Tikar.

"The first wheelchair recipient in Issa's village is now a coach of a soccer team," Sanborn said. "He loves the game, and he'll never be out on the field, but his dream is to be part of that — and now he's coaching the local soccer team and putting his passion into action."

Providing medical supplies is important to Davis.

"I realized really young that it's expensive to have a disability," Davis said. "I always tell people, 'Don't get disabled unless you win the lottery.' I had to go to school and get a job so I could afford those things, but some people don't have those opportunities."

Davis is taking the message of Soulful Presence to London in September, where she will speak at the World Health Organization's Safety 2010 Conference about violence against people with disabilities.

"I think it's so exciting," Sanborn said of Davis' trip. "It's this whole idea of taking something that started in this community ... and being able to share that with the international community."

Current projects

Along with scores of others, Davis was horrified to learn of the recent kidnapping and abuse of a 24-year-old mentally disabled Farmington man. Authorities allege three men used a hot wire hanger to brand the young man's arm with a swastika.

Soulful Presence is working closely with the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, one of its biggest partners, to be able to provide direct training to police officers around the state to respond correctly to people with disabilities.

"That program is going to create training for law enforcement about how to investigate and serve people with disabilities who are victims of crime," Davis explained. She is developing several 10-minute DVDs to be shown to officers during their shift changes. The DVDs address different strategies and tactics to use with people who have different disabilities, such as mobility issues, developmental disabilities or people who are deaf. Filming for those videos begins in June.

"We're also giving them little booklets of supportive information that they can keep in their vehicles," Davis said. "If those officers in Farmington would have had that, we really think that could have made a difference for them."

Davis doesn't want to duplicate services, so she provides referrals to other agencies.

"Soulful Presence was founded on this principle of community and how we can support other organizations and enhance and strengthen the services they already offer," Davis said. "We don't want to duplicate the great work that's out there, we just want to enhance it and fill in gaps where we're needed."

For more information, or to donate to Soulful Presence, visit www.soulfulpresence.org.

Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.