Debbie Toth

Director at Disability Rights California

Debbie Toth believes that a person should never age out of the ability to experience joy. She is the President & CEO of Choice in Aging where she develops and provides leadership for community-based social and health solutions that bring independence and dignity to elders and adults with disabilities. Under Debbie’s leadership at Choice in Aging, she has expanded it to include the Multipurpose Senior Services Program for Contra Costa, Napa and Solano Counties; the California Community Transitions project in Contra Costa, Solano and Sacramento Counties; and the Prevention and Early Access for Seniors mental health program in Solano. In 2017 Debbie realized her dream of adding intergenerational programming to CiA when Choice in Learning Montessori preschool was integrated into the Pleasant Hill Campus.

Debbie was appointed to California’s Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Advisory Committee and most recently served on the Governor's Master Plan for Aging Stakeholder Advisory Committee, shaping the blueprint to create a California for ALL. Through advocacy, policy shaping, and relentless grassroots organizing, Debbie hopes to see a long-term care continuum that allows people to age with community in place. Debbie fell in love with the aging population in high school while working at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s independent senior housing and has spent more than half her life ensuring that dignity, joy and independence are cornerstones of aging. She has been honored with numerous awards for her work and advocacy, including Woman of the Year in 2015 in Susan Bonilla’s Assembly District 14. She is a graduate of UC Irvine and uses her degree in Sociology and Political Science regularly.

Debbie is the mother of three children, grandmother of chickens, cats, reptiles and amphibians and loves her two fishermen at home. She is a tireless advocate for seniors, persons with disabilities, and the underserved.

Timeline

  • Director

    Current role