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New child wellness center opens in Half Moon Bay
Published October 9, 2026 | Updated: October 12, 2026
Walking around a bright pink room, two-year-old Alondra Lizeth Hernandez is enamored with the amount of space she can explore.
She can easily pluck a children’s book off a shelf, gaze up at colorful pinatas hanging from the ceiling and climb on mini plastic chairs, all while her mother, Patricia Hernandez Cruz, watches her from a nearby couch.
Hernandez, who has Down syndrome, will be among the hundreds of children who will receive free developmental services from a new child wellness center space that opened Thursday in downtown Half Moon Bay.
Cruz, along with local community, education and government leaders, gathered around the pink-painted center located inside the La Piazza Courtyard for a grand opening celebration.
The center is part of a larger clinical program managed by Stanford University School of Medicine and local nonprofit, Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, called ALAS PRIMES. The team helps Latino and Hispanic families living along San Mateo County’s coastline access developmental care, and many children in the program have conditions including autism, Down syndrome, and ADHD.
Children need to be referred to the center by the ALAS PRIMES partnership, and all services are free for kids from birth to age five. The pink room, along with a nearby blue room painted with clouds that Hernandez has yet to venture into, will be the site of weekly parent-child playgroups, on-site speech occupational and physical therapy and diaper distributions.
Her mother Cruz, who lives in the rural farming town of Pescadero, once struggled to find resources for her daughter “on the other side of the hill” – a term locals use to refer to the journey over the winding Santa Cruz Mountains that divide the San Mateo County coastline from the bustling cities. Cruz said she is glad to have support from ALAS PRIMES and an on-site space nearby.
“It feels good to have the space,” Cruz, 28, said in Spanish.
The ALAS PRIMES collaboration debuted in 2020 and is funded by the California Department of Developmental Services. Stanford placed a team of researchers within the ALAS organization to screen young children for developmental delays and walk families through referrals to Golden Gate Regional Center in San Mateo.
Antonio López, Director of Research and Advocacy at ALAS said the team observed how communities in Half Moon Bay, especially immigrants and farmworkers, didn’t have convenient access to developmental services for their children with special needs.
Last year, with support from First 5 San Mateo County, the collaboration grew into the Colibrí Child Wellness Program. Their first on-site developmental service space was inside a second-floor office in Camila Court.
Antonio López, Director of Research and Advocacy at ALAS said the new center, which is located across the street from Camila, has twice as much space for children and their families to utilize.
“We have our own space on the ground floor,” Lopez said. “There is a lot more wiggle room and leeway for children with special needs to get the resources they need and not feel hampered by their physical environment.”
Latinos make up 40% of the state’s population, representing the state’s largest ethnic group, according to a 2025 state-wide study on Latino health. Thirty percent of Latinos report having no usual source of health care, and about 22% rely primarily on community clinics or hospital systems.
The study also states that Latinos are more likely to seek care and discuss mental health needs when their providers share cultural backgrounds.
“Having a center like this close, in close proximity to the community, is necessary,” said Belinda Hernández-Arriaga, Founder and CEO of ALAS. “We’re also at a time in the country when families are afraid to go out (because of immigration concerns) and get help from the system.”
San Mateo County officials estimate that as many as 2,000 farmworkers live in Half Moon Bay and along the coastline. These families often face health concerns related to fears of immigration enforcement, displacement by environmental disasters, unstable housing and geographical isolation, according to Dr. Annie Berens, a Stanford developmental-behavioral pediatrician and leader at Colibri.
