Volunteering and serving on non-profit boards has been an integral part of my life. For the past 14 years I have been deeply involved with Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services, which is one of the most expansive agencies serving  Los Angeles County. Hathaway-Sycamores will impact the lives of more than 8500 children this year through 26 innovative programs, from residential care and counseling for youth at risk to foster family placements and permanent adoptions.

Our signature fundraising event each year is called Celebrating Children. We invite all our wonderful donors and sponsors to this gathering in the fall, and for the second year we have held it in the Stadium Club at Dodger Stadium when the Dodgers play an away-game. I am the event chair as well as the MC, which gives me the privilege of working closely with our dedicated staff all year-long to bring friends together in a room filled with love. We broadcast the game on a multitude of monitors and invite a retired Dodger Great to join us. This year we welcomed the legendary Ron Cey to talk a little about his career and a lot about how the Dodgers are also rooted in community service. We then honor one  or two of our supporters with our highest service award, and this year that went to my dear friends, Annsley and George Strong, longtime contributors of their time, money, and vision to the kids and families of Southern California.

All that is wonderful, but it’s not what I really wanted to post just now. We held the event earlier this week, and as we do each year we made a short video that shows a bit of our work. This year we focused on foster care and adoption. We called this story: “How to Make a Family Happen.” The words I write will never do the mission or impact of this work justice, so please have a look:

The Gutierrez and Puccia families who appear in this video were with us at the event, and there were not a lot of dry eyes in the house. They are examples of what happens when individuals decide in their own way to make a forever family happen. These stories are powerful, and they are just two of the miracles we can help make real, to bring a touch of hope and light to a troubled world. If you want to support the kind of work exemplified here, please visit our website.

Please share this video with anyone whose life you think it might touch. There is so much work we can do to improve our communities, and it all begins with local stories of caring and success.

Together, we can make families happen.