Unsung Heroes is a nonprofit that collects, preserves and exhibits the stories of African Americans who served in the U.S. military. Veterans of African descent and their family members share oral histories, along with artifacts from their own experiences in time of war.

Inspired to help parents and bring more smiles to more children, Williams founded NorCal Trykers in 2017. The organization is dedicated to building and donating adaptive tricycles to local children with disabilities in the regional school system.

Every year, Sacramento Life Center’s two mobile medical clinics provide free services for over 2,000 low-income women in critical need of medical services throughout pregnancy, with a goal to see all pregnancies come to term. However, last year, the service-providing vehicles needed some upkeep of their own: The two mobile clinics required engine repairs and tires to stay on the road.

As 18-year-old Margaret Gomez was about to complete her final GED exam, she started having contractions. She rushed from the room before finishing, though would go on to reschedule and pass. In May 2006, Gomez spoke at graduation to her 50-person class. Her 2-year-old daughter, Julyza, and weeks-old son, Junior, were in the crowd.

It’s a familiar sentiment expressed by a local donor: The charity she supports is asking for money with increasing frequency. Yet nothing changes for the better, and now duplicate groups are popping up, all of them requesting funds to address the same problem. To her, the requests seem endless.

The #MeToo and #WeSaidEnough movements remind us that women’s voices, values and ideas must be heard and heeded — not only to take aim at a culture of harassment, but to empower future generations of women to achieve and succeed.

In Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood, community dance lives, thanks to identical twin sisters Heather and Holly Singleteary, co-founders of the BlyueRose Dance Project at the Instituto Mazatlan de Bellas Artes.

Shiloh London is an early riser of the extreme variety. She wakes up at 4 a.m., spends a few minutes in silence over black coffee, laces her sneakers and literally trains for a marathon. Afterward she connects with her running mates over coffee — all before a full day’s work.

How one nonprofit uses education to encourage action on behalf women and girls around the world.

B Street has built a community of almost 30,000 devoted subscribers and patrons, and has dedicated itself to producing more than 100 new plays — 60 of which are world, national or regional premieres. Yet despite its successes, we at B Street have never lost sight of our original mission to entertain and educate children about theater and playwriting.

Community foundations have a long tradition of helping to bring about thoughtful, effective change. As 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charities, they enable people to easily and effectively support the issues they care about, including education, youth, arts, social services, environment, recreation, public health and more.

When an earthquake struck Napa Valley in August 2014, destroying homes and businesses, injuring 200 people and killing one, residents rallied to support their neighbors, donating almost $11 million to the Napa Valley Community Foundation.

The Sacramento Blue Star Moms provide support to mothers with children in the military, ship care packages to deployed service members, support veteran organizations, promote patriotism, and remember our fallen and support their family members.

We are Families NOW. That’s Families NOW, not tomorrow, not next week. We remove the systemic barriers that cause our children to languish in foster care. We show up, and we speak up at the tables where child welfare policies and funding decisions are made, and in the halls where legislation is passed.

When you really think about it, what are the two pieces of finance that can impact someone the hardest? The answer, we think, is budgeting and credit.

So why is it that we don’t learn about these topics in school?  

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. I was on the phone with my dad; we were witnessing history together. Not since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the bill that would eventually become Medicare and Medicaid had we experienced such a monumental healthcare shift.

During the school year, 13 students from Washington Elementary School in Stockton, meet once a week at the 5.7-acre Boggs Tract Community Farm, where the children grow seedlings into vegetables in one small patch of land.

In Sacramento’s culinary community, the limelight loves local celebrity chefs. Beyond the buzz, Loaves & Fishes Chef Edwin Burton is an unsung hero, serving 500 lunches per day to those in need — having himself survived life on the streets. 

In providing more than shelter, we are cognizant that we are not just helping animals, but also helping people who love animals. That requires us to be as compassionate, caring and patient with people as we are with animals.

Noel Kammermann, executive director of Loaves & Fishes, offers his insight into services for the region’s homeless population.