Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article As a hair stylist, Sandra DelCasale knows that outward appearances matter. But she also knows they can obscure as much as they reveal. When the pandemic shuttered the salon where she works, DelCasale suddenly found herself in the precarious position of living off the savings and credit she […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article When Robert Navarrette and Jasmine Mojica hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year, it carried a special significance. Just a few months earlier, they’d been homeless. Now, the engaged couple, who live with Navarrette’s 13-year-old daughter, Serenity, were able to have Mojica’s sister and brother-in-law over to their new San […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article Teresa Plancarte sat on her living room couch on a fall Saturday evening, marveling at the St. Helena vineyards and the pines just outside her front door. And she thought, “My God, nature is so beautiful.” Nearly 24 hours later, at 3 a.m., Plancarte, her husband, Esiquio, and […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article A motel room is supposed to be for a night or two, not for a year or two. But Jennifer Monique Hill had been living in one motel room after another, in Stockton and in San Jose, for the past couple of years, after breaking off a relationship […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article There were photos of her children framed on the walls. Books, clothing, pots and pans, furniture and so many other parts of Monika Donovan’s life were neatly collected in her home of 44 years. “It was a big change for my heart,” said Donovan, who turned 74 in […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article Just before noon on a recent Wednesday, a line of three dozen people snaked around the Church of the Nazarene in Concord. They were young and old, men and women of all races, one child kicking the ground as he waited. What they had in common: They needed […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article When Janet Magana de Cuevas took her husband to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley because he was struggling to breathe, a doctor took one look at her and said she, too, needed to be checked into a room. Cuevas had COVID-19, just like her husband. Her […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article When you live in a rural community like San Geronimo, your heat comes from propane. For Deirdre McDonald, Victor Urbaez and their son, Sage Urbaez, the propane bills piled up to the extent that they were looking ahead at a long, cold winter. At the same time, when […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article Bilal Chaney, 73, was told by doctors that contracting COVID-19 at his age would be a “death sentence.” Chaney, who works as a program director of the radiology department at San Francisco General Hospital, decided not to risk it and took a leave of absence following a surgical […]
Explore OurStories of Hope Share this Article Rosa Alvizar Gutierrez is the keeper of attendance at St. Helena Primary School, but when the school shut down in March, there was no attendance to keep. So Alvizar Gutierrez was reassigned as an interpreter for the school psychologist, helping parents of Spanish-speaking students work through the pressure […]
