Erwin “Sino” Donato is a husband, father, community volunteer, Realtor®, and peace builder.

FAMILY

Sino has been married to Dr. Jeff Sapp, Professor of Education at California State University Dominguez Hills, for 18 years.  Their daughter, Helena, is eleven years old and a 6th-grader at an independent school in Long Beach, where Sino is highly involved.  The Donato-Sapp family’s high regard for service and volunteering is evident in their consistent involvement as parent-volunteers in Helena’s school as well as their service on local Boards, art committees, and other prominent roles.  Check out the family at their websites because, well, they’re kind of awesome!  www.jeffsapp.com and www.helenalourdes.com

(Above) Helena, Jeff and Sino attend the Feminist Majority Foundation awards gala.

The family is committed to health and wellness as a way of life.  Sino loves to explore different cuisines and promote wellness through the food he prepares for the family.  The entire family is athletic in various ways, with a collective focus on mixed martial arts.  As dedicated practitioners of mixed martial arts, they attend classes seven times a week at the Power of One Karate Studio PCH to train in karate, jiujitsu, and kick-boxing.  They are also intrepid competitors, earning multiple medals at their last competition: Helena took Silver in Sparring, Jeff a Bronze in Forms and a Gold in Sparring, and Sino a Gold in Forms and a Silver in Sparring.  Helena, though, is the most skilled and fierce having practiced way longer than her fathers.  Indeed, she inspired them to join her!

(Above) Sino prepares for his first belt promotion, Long Beach, 2019. 

The entire Donato-Sapp family loves health and wellness, competition, and those nice little medals around their necks!  

Sino’s karate cohort.

COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER

Sino is dedicated to contributing to the Long Beach community that has been his home for many years.  From picking up trash around his own Greenbelt Heights District with the local Association, to serving on various arts volunteer roles, to giving freely of his skills, time, and expertise to his daughter’s local school, he models democratic, participatory citizenship to his daughter.  Service is a Donato-Sapp family value!

Sino is was the 2019-2020 President of the school Parent Association.

Sino and Helena join their local neighborhood association to help pick up trash on a Saturday morning.

REALTOR®

Sino’s professional experience and graduate education in mediation and negotiation as well as his lifelong immersion in various aspects of customer service make him the ideal Realtor®.  Real Estate is also a family business as his father Charles has been a Realtor® for 40 years.  Sino enjoys helping folks navigate the process of buying and selling a home as he draws from his unique set of experiences, interests, education, and interpersonal skills. 

PEACEBUILDING 

Although peacebuilding was an emphasis of his two degrees in higher education, it has been Sino’s innate passion and lifelong driving force.  He is an immigrant who came here from the Philippines when he was 12 years old.  He is gay and in a same-sex marriage and his family is multiracial and created through adoption.  The personal is political and Sino’s life always invites him in to spaces where issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and many current issues reside.  Sino and Jeff raise Helena to be a full and nuanced participant in today’s often politically fraught world.  All three of them speak on these topics in their adoption agency and in university classes throughout Southern California and beyond.  Helena, for instance, with the support of her two fathers is a regular guest speaker at a local university where she speaks to future elementary teachers about how “kids can tackle tough topics.”  All three family members are part of a yearly Think Tank with the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students at West Virginia University Parkersburg.  Sino also, as you can view in his resume, has published articles on critical topics as well.  Sino leads a family committed to making the world a more just and peaceful one.

(Above) Dr. Chris Gilmer, President of West Virginia University Parkersburg and Founder of the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students, Jeff, Helena, and Sino.