Beginning March 2020, Sacramento Kindness Campaign has worked closely with Title I Schools and has fed more than 43,000 poverty-affected children, adults, and seniors struggling with hunger as a result of COVID-19 through our family meal program. We have dispensed food in nine underserved Sacramento County communities and five Title I schools in three school districts. In our work, we have learned of deeper needs including difficulty paying bills, sustaining employment, transportation, and other gaps in meeting basic necessities. Along with providing meals, we have also provided reimbursements for gas, groceries, and gift cards based on our criteria for approved shopping items.  

In 2019, we realized that the biggest gap we could see was that the Campfire survivors had a distinct lack of access to trauma recovery. We also realized that in their own journey to resilience and trauma recovery. We received $55,000 in grant funding and used that to provide access to trauma recovery in the following ways:

Provided both traditional and non-traditional access to mental health services. If there were not enough trauma trained therapists in the client’s area, we ship iPads to use with FaceTime, plus iPods loaded with Comprehensive Resource Model technology (to be used in conjunction with bone conduction headphones). With these tools, we had access to therapy, even from a FEMA trailer in a remote part of Butte County. 

Occupational Therapy to heal the nervous system with Integrative Listening Systems which targets the vagus nerve, and Alpha-Stim which is FDA approved and widely used by the Veterans’ Administration to help military personnel with PTSD, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and physical pain. 

Art Therapy, run by a registered nurse who specialized in trauma and anger management. 

Quality time programs designed to get trauma-affected families and individuals out to take a breath, have fun, and reconnect with friends, family and community.  

We are still continuing to navigate the path to trauma recovery and resilience with some of these families, and we are so grateful to continue to be part of their journey. 

Item descripWe helped 250 survivors of the Campfire in Butte County. 

We sent hundreds of survival items to the Walmart parking lot in Chico, CA to give surviving families of the Campfire warmth and shelter. 

We sent groceries and hot meals. 

When the holidays arrived, we sent Christmas and Hanukkah items into FEMA supplied hotel rooms to spread hope and cheer. 

We supplied basic needs to the families and helped them navigate existing resources through Butte 2-1-1, food banks, and distribution centers. tion

We furnished 700 more homes with more than $300,000 worth of quality donated furniture. Together with donors, we delivered to hundreds of families. Relationships were forged between donor and receiving families on those delivery days. Years later, we still see photos of meals with friends who met on those delivery days. 

We tutored dozens of children who were learning English in school for the first time. We taught 125 immigrant wives to speak English too. We learned that in these families, the husbands arrive in the United States already speaking English. The children learned in school or in after school-programs with organizations like ours, but the wives might never learn. We met in libraries or at Mutual Assistance in Arden Arcade or in individual homes. We were proud to navigate the language learning path with the whole family.

We partnered with another non-profit organization called Inspire Girls and held STEAM classes for young Afghan ladies who might not be able to attend school in their mother country. Here they could become a doctor or scientist if they wanted to. The classes were taught by female engineers who spoke their language. 

We empowered women by procuring donated working vehicles for them. 

We supplied camping gear for hundreds of underserved youth to send them on their coming-of-age camping trip to Sly Park. 

In the same way that there are families who are one paycheck away from homelessness, there are many families who are one paycheck away from getting back into a home. In 2017, we partnered matching donors with clients who were very close to being able to afford living in homes again.  We worked with them to furnish their homes and create a savings plan with donor funds to set them up for future success.  We are so joyful to report that these families are still living in their homes and thriving. 

We partnered with Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS) in hosting an ‘Event for Hope’ to benefit the Refugee and Special Immigrant Visa Holder population served by SFBFS. In addition, they asked us to help them furnish six homes. 

That was the beginning. We realized that Sacramento Kindness Campaign’s greatest strength was the ability to fill gaps and identify current needs in poverty affected areas. Each year, we take the pulse of the community to identify a need. Filling that need becomes the “campaign” until the need has been met. We partner with other local agencies to maximize resources and connect clients to as much help as possible.