Desalene Jones is a Chicago native. She graduated from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations. After a mutual separation from Old Man Winter, she landed in Sacramento looking for sandy beaches and crashing waves, geography not being her strong suit. A year after her arrival, in 1999, she became the founder and director of Cha Cha’s Dog Daycare. Broadening the business landscape of Sacramento with the introduction of the dog daycare industry.
Her journey includes; business planning/financing/forecasting, zoning/licensure/special-use permitting, marketing, sales, operations, customer relations…and that’s just Monday morning!
With a desire to give back, she volunteered with the SSPCA and Sacramento Crisis Nursery, vowing to find a way to bring together these two populations that needed love. Desalene now has over 20 years of dog behavior under her belt and fancies herself an expert. She is fully convinced that the dog-human connection has healing components. Interactions with dogs have been proven to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress; decrease blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides. Remembering that there are populations that could greatly benefit from dogs but aren’t able to own them, she devised a plan.
Desalene began working closely with organizations like the UC Davis MIND Institute, Progressive Employment Concepts, and Southside Unlimited, welcoming individuals with developmental disabilities into the facility to learn social skills and gain potential employment. Her vision includes immigrants & refugees, those coming out of foster care or other transitional situations, wounded warriors, and seniors.
Desalene spent some time during the pandemic working with SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), helping a growing crop of entrepreneurs start their journey. Never one to shy away from a fork in the road, she began to explore acting as a creative outlet. “Hollywood loves a middle-aged minority woman” are words nobody has uttered, but
Desalene believes this population has a story to tell. During this five-year journey, she landed roles in multiple Netflix movies and a few commercials and was in the running for a national adult diaper gig. She has hopes of normalizing the existence of women over the age of 25 in mainstream media.
Desalene understands the courage needed to sustain a successful business or start a new path. She is passionate about helping those stuck between wanting to move forward and wanting to stay still.
