June 29, 2021 Raizes Collective: bringing together art and medicine for community health
Since local coronavirus infections were first detected in spring 2020, Sonoma County’s Latinx community has been disproportionately affected. Comprising roughly 30% of our population, Latinx people were hit with more than 60% of Covid infections over the last year. Although several local organizations worked to offer...
June 25, 2021 Staff Appreciation, Meet Mark Geary
CFSC Staff Appreciation! Mark Geary joined Community Foundation Sonoma County in March of 2020. Since then, his admiration and appreciation for nonprofit organizations has grown. He admires how Sonoma County holds many organizations that focus on a variety of social issues and community topics. Mark shows...
June 18, 2021 Staff Appreciation, Meet Minal Patel
While her professional accomplishments are impressive, it is Minal’s connection to the community that makes her a great fit for the Community Foundation. She volunteers regularly, most commonly at Redwood Empire Food Bank. She is very environmentally minded – intentionally living a simple lifestyle to...
June 15, 2021 Building Stronger Organizations Through Collaboration and Innovation
In 2019, we launched a unique partnership with two other funders, First 5 Sonoma County and the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County, to launch Resilient Organizations: Sustainable, Impactful, Effective (ROSIE). The ROSIE program was established to provide grant funding and peer collaboration opportunities for...
June 11, 2021 Staff Appreciation, Meet Annette Williams
CFSC Staff Appreciation! Originally from Chicago, Annette lived in San Jose for 17 years before moving to Sonoma County to trade in her high-tech lifestyle for philanthropic management. Annette is a big believer in the power of community. She began her community-focused work as a way...
June 4, 2021 Leaving a Legacy: Taya Levine on finding community in Healdsburg
During the last stretch of her thirty-year career as a self-proclaimed “international workaholic,” Taya Levine left her then home base of Arlington, Virginia and made her way west to Sonoma County. Born and raised in Fremont, California—which was then an agricultural town that she remembers...
June 4, 2021 Staff Appreciation, Meet Ariana Diaz de Leon
CFSC Staff Appreciation Time! Ariana always knew that her career goals would be centered around social work. However, after being exposed to the emotionally heavy and intense work that goes into social work, Ariana switched paths and developed a love and passion for policy, which helps...
May 21, 2021 CPI: Supporting Families Throughout the Pandemic
When Robin Bowen, Executive Director at Child Parent Institute (CPI) in Santa Rosa, first called her staff together to discuss the impact COVID-19 would have on the organization, she—like many others—wasn’t expecting the pandemic’s duration would last this long. “We just all thought it was going...
May 17, 2021 Staff Appreciation, Meet Tiny Torrez
Staff Appreciation Time! Tiny’s first-hand experience volunteering and receiving direct resources from nonprofit organizations like Catholic Charities and One Justice, introduced her to the world of nonprofits. Working at Community Foundation Sonoma County has allowed her to continue giving back to the community. As a first-generation college student, Tiny recognizes and values the importance...
April 19, 2021 Healdsburg Forever: Shifting to Meet Community Needs in a Time of Crisis
Fundraising can be tricky during a local disaster like a wildfire or flood. It can be even trickier during a global pandemic that spans an entire year and counting. COVID-19 and successive years of wildfires hit the Healdsburg and Geyserville communities hard. With grapes left...