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S A N TA C R U Z S E N T I N E L . C O M 12 | 2022 READERS CHOICE AWARDS | FEBRUARY 26, 2023 Melissa takes pride in serving the local community, and also loves that she has served customers from across the globe including the UK, Germany, Asia, and India. She has had return visitors from all over California—even a few repeat customers coming from New York and North Carolina. One of Spa Santangelo's non-local regulars, Alicia Blanco, first visited over eight years ago and started a tradition of sorts. Alicia and a group of women visit two to three times a year, driving from South Monterey County, Salinas, Fresno, San Jose, and Sacramento. "We treat ourselves to Spa Santangelo's services and always have a great time," says Alicia. "Spa Santangelo is one of our favorite getaways." They have tried many services including the hot tub, sauna, sound healing, massages, chakra alignment and facials. "It's always a day of celebrating—birthdays, goals, accomplishments, babies—all wrapped into one." Customers also voted Spa Santangelo Best Yoga Center, which surprised Melissa since there are no regularly scheduled classes. "Since the pandemic, I've been teaching Yoga only as privates and as Yoga Hikes, not as large classes." It seems people have great memories of her past group classes. "When I teach yoga, I do a mix of Pilates, yoga and Qi Gong—ending with a guided meditation." A new spa treatment that Spa Santangelo offers is "two treatments at once/four hands." She noticed that people were mostly booking massages and "…they don't understand that energy work is also very important," says Melissa. "My staff and I created this service to help people get deeper healing by getting massage and energy work together." Long-time spa staff includes two licensed massage therapists who are Cypress Health Institute graduates: Shannon Cummings and Toku Kawai Beccio. There is also a reflexologist that recently started working with the spa. Jayson Madani, Realtor Jayson Madani was voted "Best Realtor-San Lorenzo Valley (agent)" for the second consecutive year. He is co- founder and realtor at The Madani Team/ Room Real Estate (roomsantacruz.com), which has customers throughout Santa Cruz County and beyond. "We've served San Lorenzo Valley since the beginning of my career, in 2004," he says. He and The Madani Team regularly donate to various community organizations. These include Second Harvest Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity Monterey Bay (the latter benefited from a Staging Furniture and Decor Sale held last September). Madani remembers being a middle school student and attending a job fair that would foretell his future. A real estate agent stated that, "Everyone should own a home." Today, he helps people achieve this. When asked why he thinks customers voted him as Best SLV Realtor, Madani replies, "We focus on customer centric real estate. We put the needs and wants of the customer at the forefront of all decisions and actions. This approach prioritizes understanding and addressing each client's unique concerns continued from 11 SUNDAY-FRIDAY 11-10 · SATURDAY 11-10 KID FRIENDLY, DOG FRIENDLY, ALL PEOPLE FRIENDLY EAT-IN • ORDER ON-LINE • TO-GO WINNER BEST VEGAN/ VEGETARIAN WINNER BEST BITES ON A BUDGET Thanks & Gratitude, Santa Cruz!