“I started with a passion to go into pediatric oncology,” Cardona-Jones said. “I was inspired to do this because I watched a friend go through cancer.”
But over time, her career took an unexpected turn.
“I started bartending and working in fine dining,” Cardona-Jones said. “I worked at a local restaurant in DC for five years after graduating.”
During that time, she met her husband to be, Alan Cardona, who had moved to the US from his native Honduras six months before they met. Cardona-Jones was fluent in Spanish and was soon helping her husband learn English.
“We got married and had our son Geo (Geovanni),” Cardona-Jones said. “We started saving to buy our first house and after looking, we realized that it wasn’t going to work.”
Priced out of the market by D.C.’s high home prices, Cardona-Jones convinced her husband to give her hometown of Dayton a try. The family moved to Dayton in 2013 and bought a house in Centerville.
At first, she thought she’d continue working at fine dining establishments, bartending and serving. But she soon realized she needed to look for something else and started researching jobs that could work with the skills she already had.
“Being in the customer service industry for so long, I had a developed a lot of different skills,” Cardona-Jones said. “Paralegal kept popping up in my search.”
She was accepted into the paralegal program at Sinclair Community College where she earned her paralegal certificate, specializing in immigration.
“I really loved it and very quickly I knew I wanted to do more,” Cardon-Jones said. “I started law school the very same day that Geo started kindergarten in 2016.”
Cardona-Jones chose an accelerated program so she could earn her degree in three years. At the same time, she was working at Lexis-Nexis as a telephonic solutions consultant.
“I had maintained a good relationship with the chair of the law program at Sinclair,” Cardona-Jones said. “He reached out to me and said he thought I’d be a good educator and asked if I was interested in teaching a class. So I took a leap of faith.”
She taught part time until she graduated and then was offered a position as a full-time law professor at Sinclair. She earned tenure and after five years, she believed it would be her forever job.
But as often happens, another fork in the road appeared on Cardona-Jones’ life journey. She spotted a post on LinkedIn by the then-chair of the board of the Brunner Literacy Center in Dayton.
“I was struck by the job itself and the way it impacted the community,” Cardona-Jones said. “It was all about education, but it was working with adults and something about working with the immigrant and refugee population really called to me.”
She was hired and started her new position as the CEO of the BLC in February of 2023.
“I have always loved learning,” Cardona-Jones said. “As a kid, I wasn’t that excited about snow days because it meant I’d be missing school. I developed an appreciation of the magic that can happen in the classroom.”
Her position at BLC has brought her career and life full circle.
“I love being able to meet someone where they are and helping them assimilate into this country and have better job opportunities,” she said.
The BLC has been empowering adults through literacy since 2011. And since taking over the reins, Cardona-Jones has helped the program grow outside of the center on Shiloh Springs Road. Not only does the BLC offer distance learning opportunities through partnerships with churches and coffee shops, it now offers support for young people in grades K-12.
“There are way more kids than what I thought at the beginning that need our help,” Cardona-Jones said. “We work with local high schools and help kids who are not reading at grade level. Without help, they aren’t set up for success.”
Cardona-Jones has not only followed in her mother’s footsteps as an attorney but also has the same servant heart. Now a resident of Patterson Park in Dayton, she said this is also how she parents her own son.
“Geo knows that he has an obligation to take care of his community and leave it better than when he found it,” she said. “Even when I lived away, I stayed engaged in what was happening in Dayton. I knew I would make my way back here and would be a part of whatever was happening.”
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