Information provided by the Community Foundation for San Benito County. Lea este artículo en español aquí.
Every so often, I get to step back and take stock of what this community has done — and this summer has given me a lot to take stock of.
A few weeks ago, the Community Foundation for San Benito County celebrated the students who received scholarships through our Latino Generations Fund. I have the privilege of seeing a lot of generosity in this role, but there is nothing quite like watching a young person walk into their future knowing their community believed in them first.
This year’s recipients remind me exactly why we do this work. Kaylee Salazar Estrada is heading to California State University, Fresno to study dance — a young woman who has navigated real hardship and found in music and movement something she describes simply as freedom, and who now wants to build spaces where others can find it too. Frida Salinas-Figueroa spent two years in school in Mexico with no safety net, came back to California more resilient than ever, and is pursuing architecture with a vision of designing sustainable, dignified homes for farmworker families. Ruth Alvarez Hoang — Latina and Vietnamese, a dancer and aspiring civil engineer — is headed to the University of Washington, determined to build the kind of representation for women in STEM that she once had to fight to find herself.
Three students. Three futures. All from right here. That is what this foundation exists to make possible.
And This Community Did Not Stop There
Earlier this spring, we made an ask of San Benito County. A generous local donor had pledged $50,000 — every gift matched, dollar for dollar — to bring back our grant program after a year without one. It had been a hard year, and the organizations that quietly hold this community together had kept showing up anyway: feeding families, mentoring youth, caring for older adults, protecting open spaces.
You showed up for them in return.
The Spring Grants Campaign reached its goal. Every dollar was matched. Applications for the 2026 Program Grant cycle came in through June 22nd, and on July 27th we will announce the local nonprofits receiving grants of up to $10,000 each. Every one of those grants exists because someone in this county chose to give.
Come See It All Come Together on September 22
On Monday, September 22 the Foundation will host its annual State of the Foundation — and this year, our grant recipients will be in the room to speak for themselves.
Not as names on a slide, but as neighbors telling you directly what they are building, who they are serving, and what becomes possible when a community decides to invest in itself. It is one of the most honest looks you will get at what a community foundation actually does, and it is free and open to everyone.
The event will take place on Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at the Hollister Veterans’ Memorial Building | 649 San Benito St, Hollister, CA
Register at tinyurl.com/state-of-cfsbc-26
From the students stepping into their futures, to the nonprofits this county chose to fund, to a room full of neighbors in September who care about this place — this is what community looks like in San Benito County. I hope you will come see it for yourself.