Angel Calderon has been named 2007 Hispanic Citizen of the Year by the Napa Valley Cinco de Mayo organization in recognition of his humanitarian efforts for people in the Napa Valley and in his native community of Timbinal in Mexico.

Mr. Calderon is the Resident On-Site Manager of the River Ranch Farmworker Housing Center near St. Helena. This is a dormitory housing facility for migrant and seasonal farmworkers traveling without their families. He has raised money to help farmworkers with family financial crises, guaranteed people seeking green cards and U.S. citizenship, and advocated for farmworker rights.

Mr. Calderon has also raised thousands of dollars to improve the infrastructure, education system and economic vitality of his native Timbinal and surrounding villages, including public works projects, such as a municipal water system for a village that had no water, and a grade school where there was none. He spoke to more than 100 people to find 23 Napa residents, originally from Timbinal, to join him in investing about $4,000 each to build a sewing factory in the village. The factory employs 35 people, providing the villager's first full-time jobs in many years.

Judith Tiller, Regional Housing Manager for California Human Development says of Angel Calderon: "Mr. Calderon is indeed a man of heart and of action. Those of us who know him are enriched by it."