When the University of Utah gathers to celebrate Founders Day, it honors leaders whose work transforms lives across Utah. In 2026, that spotlight shone on Mayra A. Sanchez Gomez, a certified doula, nonprofit founder, mother, and fierce advocate for maternal health who received the 2026 Honorary Alumna Award.
From Personal Struggle to Purpose
Born in Mexico and immigrating to the United States at the age of 19, Mayra became a mother at 20. Through her own pregnancies and births, she experienced both the beauty and the vulnerability of motherhood, often without the support she desperately needed.
“I really went through difficult times when I saw the need to have a resource around me and I couldn't find any,” she says. “This is the support that is in addition to what the family can do for you. It's more understanding about the challenges of motherhood, especially during birth, pregnancy, and postpartum.”
Those experiences became her calling to help others. “I think it was my own experience that really pushed me to look for a resource or solution to what I was going through,” she says.
Determined that no other mother should feel alone during childbirth, Mayra enrolled in a doula training course. What she discovered there was eye-opening. “At the end of the training, I realized how many things we don't know,” she says. “The education, the resources, or the information for prenatal classes. We need more information about how our body works, how we can be supported, and how we can achieve whatever our goal is during our experience of birth.”
Founding Comunidad Materna en Utah
Recognizing a critical gap in culturally responsive maternal care, particularly for Latina women, Mayra launched Comunidad Materna en Utah with seed funding from University Neighborhood Partners’ Westside Leadership Institute. Her vision was to provide prenatal education, postnatal support, and professional doula services based in cultural understanding.
“I started engaging with UNP and working on my doula project,” Mayra says. “I saw this as a community need and something that could be bigger and impact many more people.”
Today, Comunidad Materna en Utah has served more than 700 families, led over 200 workshops, and trained 46 doulas. The organization focuses on “supporting moms with prenatal education, postnatal support, and giving doula support services if a mom wants them and needs them.”
Through partnerships with the Utah Department of Health, Division of Multicultural Affairs, and U of U Health Plans, the nonprofit has grown into a trusted resource across Westside communities.
A Seat at the Table: Shaping the West Valley Campus
Mayra’s partnership with University of Utah Health expanded her impact even further. A University of Utah program and a $500 grant helped launch her nonprofit, and that relationship evolved into collaboration. She played an important role in shaping the new health campus and hospital in West Valley City, ensuring that community voices were heard in the planning process.
“If we want to really improve maternal health, we need to work in collaboration with systems,” Mayra explains. “The university wants to really listen to what we think, and that's what I love about the U because they do their part bringing us to the table.”
Strength at Work and at Home
For countless women in West Valley, Mayra is their steady presence in the most vulnerable moments of labor and postpartum recovery. But even leaders need support.
“One of my key supports has been my husband,” she says. “He always told me this is your dream, and now it's your turn.”
Her humility is evident to everyone around her. As one doula describes Mayra, “She is a hero, like a very unexpected hero. She is very humble about it. She has impacted so many lives in so many ways that I don't think any person who has met her doesn't feel that way.”
Mayra does not seek recognition. In fact, she admits, “I'm a person who doesn't say what I do most of the time. I'm quiet. I just really like to do things.”
But the 2026 Founders Day Award offers a meaningful pause, a moment to reflect not only on her work but on its profound reach.
“The word recognition, it really brings my heart a lot of joy because I have to recognize myself that what I'm doing, and have been doing for all these years, is so valuable,” she says. “Seeing all those families that are being served through the program is something that really humbles me, and I’m proud—like wow, I really did it.”
A Legacy Still Growing
The Founders Day Award recognizes individuals whose service strengthens both the University of Utah and the communities it serves. Mayra A. Sanchez Gomez embodies that mission. Through Comunidad Materna en Utah, through her collaboration with University of Utah Health, and through every mother she stands besides, Mayra has reshaped maternal health care on the Westside.