Two years ago, Claudia Diaz was worried that her son Geraldo wouldn't be ready for kindergarten. He didn't seem to be developing vocabulary skills as quickly as she expected, so the East Palo Alto mom decided to enroll in ... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 6, 2023
When Valentina Rivera moved from Cali to California six years ago, her hopes and dreams far eclipsed her resources and connections. Growing up in Cali, a coastal city in southwest Colombia, she was accustomed ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 24, 2022
"Flap your wings really fast!" Miss Jennifer told the class of first graders at The Primary School during a recent December morning. The 16 first graders, assembled on ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 16, 2022
Menlo Park resident Carmen Visser's two daughters, 11-year-old Sofia and 10-year-old Eloisa, loved to work on crafts and watercolor paintings at home but did not have access ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 9, 2022
Dec. 16, 2017, is a day forever etched into Christina Pressley's memory. That's when she found Heart and Home Collaborative, a Palo Alto-based nonprofit that she now calls her family. Everyone there ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 2, 2022
Bonnie Louisa Ball-Mendoza was out of work during the pandemic and relying on her Section 8 housing voucher and COVID-19 rent relief funds to help cover her monthly rent. The problem was ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 25, 2022
Nine-year-old Geoff doesn't talk much; he has difficulty communicating verbally. But his eagerness to go to camp this past summer was palpable to his father, Steve Davis. Every morning Geoff would place his father's ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 18, 2022
Lending a much-needed helping hand to those in crisis and strengthening our community have always been the aims of the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund. Now in its 30th year, the annual charitable giving drive is kicking off ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 18, 2022
The likelihood of Zulema Garibo going to college seemed pretty slim: English was not her native language. No one in her family had ever attended college. And her status as an undocumented ... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 7, 2022
It was a perfect day for planting, with overcast morning sky giving way to afternoon sun, as 10-year-old Reyansh Malla massaged a knot in the tangled roots of a water gum tree that his group ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 24, 2021
In elementary school, when Max Murray played hide-and-seek, his friends quickly disappeared.Not so much because they excelled at the game of self-concealment, but more due to a combination of Murray's ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 17, 2021
Angel Tafolla has big dreams. The 13-year-old soccer player hopes to one day play for one of the world's most renowned teams: Futbol Club Barcelona. And thanks to the 2-acre Rich May Field in East Palo ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 10, 2021
Balvina Ramirez has long had an interest in growing her own food but simply didn't have space in her apartment. Things changed when she got involved with Fresh Approach roughly five ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 3, 2021
Ever since she was a young nun, Sister Trinitas Hernandez wanted to follow the path of Rosalie Rendu, a 19th-century nun of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 26, 2021
When Joanna Solis was 13, her favorite aunt died of ovarian cancer, and the sudden loss left Solis utterly bereft.
"She was like a second ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 19, 2021
The Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund campaign to support local nonprofits that provide critical help to those in need is kicking off this week, with the aim of raising $500,000 — every every cent of which will be distributed ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 12, 2021
For more than half a century, Hidden Villa has provided its young campers with a unique blend of pastoral beauty and social justice activism. They come for the baby goats; they stay for the ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 25, 2020
Leave it to Sarika Lansberg to get middle school kids excited about high school despite it taking place online. As a senior at Palo Alto High School, she too knows about Zoom fatigue and all ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 18, 2020
When Maribel Ramirez lost her baby in pregnancy several years ago, there wasn't a program available with cultural sensitivity in Palo Alto to help process her grief. "The cultural and socio-economic factors ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 10, 2020
For Karna and Arne Nisewaner and their two children, Palo Alto Community Child Care has been a lifesaver. Instead of her elementary-aged children feeling ignored and isolated at home and Nisewaner ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 4, 2020
Two years ago, Carmen Thomas had a choice: Did she want to stay on board with Facebook, where she'd been interning to take a full-time job offer as a recruiting coordinator, or did she want ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 27, 2020
When the new academic year started at Ravenswood City School District with full distance learning, staff at the nonprofit San Francisco 49ers Academy knew there would be students who would fall through ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 20, 2020
For the past eight months, local nonprofit organizations like East Palo Alto's Ecumenical Hunger Program have been scrambling to meet the needs of their clients. In ordinary times, Ecumenical Hunger Program staff ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 13, 2020
There's a video made for the nonprofit Fit Kids Foundation that warms founder Ashley Hunter's heart. In it, a 7-year-old girl wearing her favorite sequined cat-ears headband is running with a group of children at a playground at Costaño Elementary School in ... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 3, 2020
When Beatrice Piceno, 17, was planning her summer, she was immediately attracted to Hidden Villa's Leaders in Training program because she knew it would give her the opportunity to find out if working... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 20, 2019
Jules Thomas has always been confident in his public speaking skills, but nerves got the best of him when he first entered the world of debate. During his freshman year of high school, he was intimidated... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 13, 2019
Niki Ebrahimnejad remembers how she and the other student mentors of Palo Alto Music Connection (PAMC) used to pay for basic supplies like reeds and sheet music for their elementary and middle... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 6, 2019
Sporting a yellow T-shirt and armed with a picker and a bucket, Ruben Michael and his four-person team of volunteers gathered at a Palo Alto downtown parking lot on a recent Thursday morning to start... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 29, 2019
Several years ago, when a transgender student wanted to transition from female to male at Fletcher Middle School in Palo Alto, librarian Kristen Lee reached out to Outlet, which provides services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 22, 2019
Jazmin Sosa knows the power of the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund to help families breathe a little easier. As operations manager for the nonprofit Ravenswood Education Foundation, which aids the six schools of the Ravenswood City School District... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 15, 2019
Through the generous contributions of 375 donors, the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund collected a record-breaking $403,889 this winter — every dollar of which will be distributed in the coming months to local nonprofits serving those in need... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 18, 2019
Being a grief support person can be a heavy undertaking. Just ask Lupe Lujan. As a volunteer for the Palo Alto-based nonprofit Kara, a one-on-one session with a client dealing with the death of a loved... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 21, 2018
The two portable classrooms behind St. Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto bustled with activity in the days leading up to this week's community Posada festival. Students in the Catholic Charities Youth Club... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 21, 2018
On a drizzly December afternoon, more than 25 children gathered in the cafeteria/gymnasium at Los Robles Magnet Academy in East Palo Alto. With rapt attention they shook their arms, clapped their hands... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 14, 2018
Ten years ago, Adriana Barajas was not on anyone's list of "most likely to succeed." Then 14 years old, she was hanging around with gang members and bouncing from school to school. "I come from... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 7, 2018
Twice a week after school, a rather mundane trailer in the midst of colorfully decorated mobile homes at Buena Vista Mobile Home Park becomes a lively clubhouse for neighborhood children... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 30, 2018
"Have you ever felt an earthquake?" asked Environmental Volunteers team coordinator Nancy Mayo of energetic fourth-graders sitting cross-legged Monday in a classroom at Castro Elementary School... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 23, 2018
Inside a quiet East Palo Alto elementary school classroom last year, student Gyna Monroy and tutor Evelyn Chan-Cox huddled over a picture book from the "Elephant and Piggie" series practicing... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 16, 2018
In slam poetry, the hands speak as much as the mouth. As Crystal Trevillion stood in front of a crowd of students and families in Palo Alto Art Center, her hands moved between her head and stomach, at one point beating the air in a curled... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 5, 2018
Chances are you've seen the work of the Mural, Music & Arts Project while passing through East Palo Alto. The colorful murals, conceived and painted by youth artists, blanket the city's parks, public buildings and schools. Each painting — depicting... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 22, 2017
Darlene Berryessa was just 40 years old when her vision began to blur. She had no idea she had high blood pressure, but she was having a stroke. Berryessa, now 54, also had diabetes, but she didn't know that either at the time. She hadn't seen a doctor... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 15, 2017
In the midst of dozens of donations for $25, $100 or $500 received earlier this month to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, one jumped out: an unsolicited and completely unexpected check for $25,000 from a first-time donor. While the Holiday Fund... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 15, 2017
The classroom sat in captivated silence in late November as science teacher Scott Bell explained the day's lesson, lecturing from a pristine textbook. Each of the 27 eighth-grade students at St. Elizabeth Seton School... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 7, 2017
Inside a quiet classroom at Brentwood Academy in East Palo Alto on Monday afternoon, Gyna Monroy reclined on a blue beanbag, carefully reading aloud from a picture book called "There's a Bird on Your Head!"... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 1, 2017
Wodd Cerf never saw himself as a leader, but he's now a manager-in-training at Ada's Café in Palo Alto. He opens up most mornings with card access to the building, one of his many duties since getting promoted... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 24, 2017
"I did it!" said Brian, a second-grader at the Los Robles Magnet Academy in East Palo Alto, as he balanced on his finger an upside-down paper cutout of a man. He was the first student in Monica Banuelas' ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 17, 2017
This week marks the start of the 25th Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund drive, a charitable-giving effort that annually raises about $350,000 for local nonprofit organizations serving children, families ... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 17, 2017
Don't let the booming Silicon Valley technology-driven economy lull you into thinking that there isn't a continuing divide, even in the affluent Palo Alto area, between those riding high and the many families... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 17, 2017
Jose Cabrera cranked up the heater to full blast in his duplex unit to keep his wife and three children warm. It wasn't the coldest day of the year, nor was the winter excessively frigid. But he was willing ... [ Read More ] Posted Jan. 3, 2017
"All the world's a stage," according to the king of theater, William Shakespeare. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has taken that concept to heart by fostering theater skills and creative thinking throughout ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 27, 2016
After 14 brain surgeries over the past three years -- including three this past month -- few things can get 11-year-old Austin Morgan to jump out of his hospital recovery bed and leave his wheelchair ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 16, 2016
Earlier this year, the Palo Alto Children's Health Council launched the CHC Teen Mental Health Initiative, designed to meet the needs of teens affected by mental health issues -- anxiety and depression ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 13, 2016
The East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring (EPATT) program has long sought to show disadvantaged students new possibilities in life, whether a new sport, better academic skills or a local college. It's also... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 9, 2016
As first-graders spilled into Amy Modrich's classroom, they marveled at masks set out on desks, picking them up and eagerly asking what they were going to do in class that day. Modrich called the students... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 25, 2016
A Palo Alto family has made a $100,000 donation to the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund in hopes of inspiring other donors to join them in supporting local programs for kids, families and individuals in ... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 16, 2016
Don't let the booming Silicon Valley technology-driven economy lull you into thinking that there isn't a continuing divide, even in the affluent Palo Alto area, between those riding high and the many families... [ Read More ] Posted Dec. 2, 2016
Support for the homeless population. Training for developmentally disabled employees. Summer camp for low-income children facing life-threatening illness. Tutoring. Counseling. Science lab materials... [ Read More ] Posted Nov. 18, 2016
