Jennifer Sun's parents had strong opinions about what her career path should be. Her mom wanted her to be a teacher. Her father wanted her to have a corporate job. They'd fled Communist China for Taiwan and left Taiwan for the United States, and security, financially and otherwise, was paramount to them.
 

When Michelle Swittenberg began looking for a place to locate BRWL, her boxing and yoga studio, she wanted to settle in Orange, New Jersey. She'd found that most of the studios were located in more of the higher income areas, like Milburn or Short Hills, when working out on her own. "It was important for me to get people to come to Orange," she says. "This keeps money in the neighborhood and hopefully attracts money to the neighborhood, too." 

Veronica Lopez will always remember March 16, 2020. It’s the day that Los Angeles County ordered the closure of businesses and banned large public gatherings of any kind to contain the COVID-19 virus. Almost immediately, the constant phone calls from businesses seeking assistance began and didn’t start to slow down until several months later in June.

Sharon Lee was born in New York and spent part of her formative years with her grandparents in Hong Kong when her parents divorced. Even at age 5, Lee, executive director of Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), reports being conscious of the wide wealth disparities that existed in the world. Each morning when she arrived at school, she passed men and women sitting outside the gate, asking for spare change.

Thomas Yu hadn't planned on a career in community development. But as an immigrant growing up in lower Manhattan, there was something about it that felt right.
 
"My family lived in affordable housing, so that theme runs throughout my life," says Yu, who serves as co-executive director of Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) with Jennifer Sun. "There's a strong belief in my family that the pathway to security and economic mobility starts with a safe and affordable place to live."
 

A NeighborWorks America network organization in Ohio was able to help staff and East Akron residents with personal protective equipment (PPE), homeownership education and even groceries, thanks to a boost from NeighborWorks America and national banking partner Fifth Third Bank.

Warren Dawson has lived in one of RUPCO Inc.'s apartment communities in Kingston, New York, for three years. Before that, he was homeless for some time in South Carolina, he says. He stayed in shelters and in parks. He eventually went north to New York for a funeral and decided to stay to be closer to family. That's when he entered a shelter program for veterans, qualifying through his service in the National Guard and the U.S. Army.

The letter was written by hand on lined paper. On those lines – and between them – was gratitude from a tenant trying to rebuild her life after an abusive marriage. She had come to the transitional townhomes at Mennonite Housing Rehabilitation Services, Inc., in Kansas with her three children. But the progress she had made in rebuilding her life seemed to come to a halt when COVID-19 took away her employment. 

In February, just two weeks after Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president, a portrait of her stood on display near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The installation, created by Simon Berger, used broken glass as a medium. It was an homage to the latest shattering of the "glass ceiling." 

Maria Garciaz came to NeighborWorks Salt Lake as a volunteer. She’d been working in juvenile court as a probation officer, sometimes with gang members, and the organization asked her to offer advice on a youth program to help teens build life skills. “I fell in love with the work,” she says. When YouthWorks finally came into being, she submitted an application to head the program. That was her path to community organizing.