What began as one veteran's journey across America has grown into a lasting partnership helping veterans find housing, access essential services, and build stronger connections in their communities. 

In April 2019, Tommy Zurhellen boarded a one-way flight to Portland, Oregon, with a pair of running shoes, a mailbag, and a determination to make a difference. 

His plan was ambitious: Walk across the United States to raise awareness about veteran suicide and homelessness. 

NeighborWorks ® Community Leadership Institute (CLI): Ignite launched this month with groups of residents gathering to connect and learn. A virtual adaptation of the traditional CLI, which brings together resident leaders for a weekend of training and inspiration, this year’s event is designed to meet people where they live. 

There is a difference between holding an event in a community and allowing that community to become part of the event. 

For NeighborWorks® America, that distinction matters. 

“Food can bring us together.” For Felix Colon, this is more than just a saying; it’s an action. In North Central Massachusetts, Felix founded Meek and Humble Ministries, a nonprofit organization that cooks, delivers and serves approximately 80 hot meals three times per week to individuals and families in need. Unlike some more traditional programs, Felix loads all the meals in his truck and delivers them to people where they are. 

Olivia Gomez grew up in Planada, a small community of about 4,000 people in California’s Central Valley. Her parents picked tomatoes, peaches and figs, and she lived first in a camp for farm workers. When Self-Help Enterprises, a NeighborWorks network organization in Visalia, opened Bear Creek Housing for farm workers, she and her family moved there. Four years later, she remembers helping her parents as they built a home of their own, also through a Self-Help program.

For more than three decades, the John R. Grubb Community YMCA anchored Des Moines' Northside. It opened in 1994 in a city-owned building at 11th Street and College Avenue, and for families in King-Irving and the surrounding neighborhoods it was one of the few reliable places where children could swim, seniors could exercise, and neighbors could simply run into one another.

Vinegar Hill, the Charlottesville, Virginia, community where Carmelita Wood was born, isn’t here anymore. Once a thriving neighborhood of Black-owned homes and businesses, it was razed in the 1960s, part of an urban renewal program.

NeighborWorks® America is proud to celebrate the recipients of its annual Dorothy Richardson Award for Resident Leadership. The national award honors resident leaders who strengthen their communities and inspire their neighbors to do the same.

Why would an affordable housing developer own a community art gallery? At NHS Greater New Britain, housing and art aren't separate missions. They're complementary parts of one approach to building community. NHS New Britain President & CEO Chris Sanders explained, “NHS Gallery 66 provides us with a powerful focal point for convening and engaging. It is an important part of our mission of making a community a better place to call home.” 

Tawana Jackson didn’t set out to become a property manager. But once she started working at the front desk at Durham Housing Authority, talking with residents, answering questions, and steering them toward resources, it seemed like a natural progression. 

“Your home is your safe space, right? So that's how I treat it,” she said.