Community Boards is proud to honor the
2020 San Francisco Peacemaker Awards Recipients.
We are grateful to our generous benefit sponsors.
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From the time she was a child, Michelle Meow dreamed big. Growing up in Stockton, California in a single parent home with five siblings and mom who had fled a Thai refugee camp, Michelle grew up fast. The first time she tried to make friends with kids around her neighborhood, she was told to go "back to my country." She saw first hand how the hatred one can face from childhood to adulthood is dangerous and damaging. She aspired to change this for all of us and wondered in her youth, “Why can't we learn to love and accept one another for our differences and our similarities?” That is the journey and quest she is on and the reason behind her innovative work in broadcast.
Today, Michelle Meow is the host and producer of "The Michelle Meow Show.” The program’s tag line is: ‘Your A-Z, covering the LGBT, LMNOP, and everyone in between.’ Michelle’s mission is constructing opportunities for people to listen in to deep conversations to develop understanding and empathy. She shares, “We simply don’t have enough opportunities to talk and not enough moments to listen.” Michelle’s show can be heard in San Francisco and nationally on the Progressive Voices Network and her local TV show can be seen on KBCW TV and Channel 44.
Michelle also produces programs at the iconic Commonwealth Club, where she serves on their Board of Governors. There she is dedicated to conversations around social justice with an intersectional lens. She has interviewed notable thought-leaders such as Olympic medalist Adam Rippon, NFL's first out LGBTQ coach Katie Sowers, first American woman in space, and Sally Ride's widow Tam O'Shaughnessy. Since 2006, Michelle has been a co-host of the San Francisco Pride Parade broadcast and she is the President of their Board of Directors. She is a self-described LGBTQI+ history geek, information sponge, and a lover not a fighter.
Michelle shares, “Exchanging thoughtful dialogue can create change. We are all different, but in our differences, we find similarities and hope. Exchanging thoughtful dialogue can create change we all seek in humanity.”
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Ana Villareal is a 16 year old eleventh grader at Mission High School in San Francisco and a Mission District native. For the past two years, Ana has been involved with her school’s peer mediation program. So far this year, Ana has mediated 28 cases! Her Peer Resources teacher Ms. Fakhra Shah beams when describing Ana, “She is honest and dedicated to seeing justice and harmony prevail at school. She has a lot of credibility with her peers due to her ability to share and show compassion.”
Her mother, Yanira, describes Ana as a person, “motivated to better everyone’s lives in any way she can. She has a good heart and feels the pain of others.”
Ana shares that she became a peer mediator to honor her sister Eva’s legacy. She found that she too could help students who were traumatized, struggling and experiencing bullying, sexism, racism, and altercations. Ana has found that her favorite mediations are when she can help two friends clear up misunderstandings and reunite.
Ana shares, “It intrigues me how I can help people even with small conversations. A lot of stu-dents at my school don’t have stable families or a place where they can open up. In mediation, students really share and depend on the peer mediators for support.”
We are so grateful for all the ways Ana is making peace in her community
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Located in the heart of the Mission, a gem nonprofit exists. La Raza Community Resource Center is a grassroots, bilingual, multi-service organization that has been serving the Latino community for over 40 years.
La Raza CRC’s mission is to help preserve and develop San Francisco’s Latino community by providing appropriate resources that promote self-sufficiency and leadership. La Raza CRC is a place where monolingual people turn to for a wide range of assistance: getting legal representation for asylum, naturalization, and citizenship; support with filing paperwork and having important documents read to them; and receiving food, clothing, cellphones, and financial relief. As importantly, their clients also find community and reassurance.
The beauty of La Raza CRC is that they meet people where they are and respond to their needs so they can survive and thrive in San Francisco. They extend the friendliest and warmest hand to those living in fear, poverty, and insecurity.
Long-term Executive Director Melba Maldonado shares, “We serve 5000 people a year between immigration support, citizenship and leadership classes, women and family support groups, and providing for basic needs. We do this with a staff of 12 and the most amazing volunteers. We work in collaboration with other organizations supporting immigrants and their rights. If we hear ICE is somewhere or if someone has been picked up, our team will go there right away. We do all the work we do with love and respect of people’s dignity, otherwise why do it?”
To learn more about their valuable work, visit their website:
larazacrc.org
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Contact: Darlene Weide, Executive Director
dweide@communityboards.org
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