Pari Livermore Points of Light Benefit

Pari Livermore founder, organizer and producer

The Points of Light benefit honors the top twenty-five volunteers in the Bay Area.

Mary Ann Carpenter

MAC’s Children and Family Services

Mary Ann started MAC’s Children and Family Services in order to provide quality care and residential assistance to at risk youth. As an African American woman, when this nominee first had the idea of opening up a facility for at risk youth with no social work experience she was told she could not do it for a number of reasons. Mary Ann has not only opened one residential facility, but two and she also started a Foster Family Agency, and a Transitional Housing Placement Program. Her motivation comes from a strong internal drive to strengthen functioning, self-sufficient members of the community in which they choose to live without needing to rely on public assistance programs.

Pali Boucher

Hopalong Animal Rescue

Pali volunteers over 120 hours a month for Hopalong Animal Rescue. Pali’s home is a foster home for abandoned dogs that would otherwise be euthanized. She coordinates mobile pet adoptions, represents the agency through information booths set up in the community and holds fund raisers for Hopalong Animal Rescue. Pali lived on the streets with her mother as a child and was also homeless during her adult life. She has overcome homelessness, battery, and drug addiction and is fulfilled by her interaction with each dog she meets and enjoys connecting dogs to their new human companions so that they too can have a second chance.

Steve and Michele Kirsch

Kirsch Foundation

Steve and Michele are a dynamic duo who set high standards for philanthropic giving. After more than a decade of making individual charitable grants, in 1999 they established the Kirsch Foundation with approximately 50 million in assets. They continue to give their time, talents, and financial resources to address major issues such as finding cures for diseases, cleaning up the air, preventing nuclear disaster, and reforming the current political and educational processes. Steve and Michele re mentors and role models for a new generation of potential philanthropists. They encourage other successful entrepreneurs to think about charitable causes. Their commitment is astounding.

Thy Nguyen

Operation Smile

Thy, who fled Vietnam three days before the fall of Saigon, volunteers for Operation Smile. Her current activities include project development to help rebuild a hospital in Vietnam as well as well as fundraising the help send medical missions overseas. In the past she organized events and fundraisers such as the Tour De Smiles bike tour, and participated in Operation Smile’s Dental Mission to Vietnam. They also hosted a Vietnamese child from a very poor regions of Vietnam who underwent surgery for a cleft pallet lip. She witnessed disabled children become able, children ashamed to be seen in public due to facial deformities  give proud smiles, and children with Cystic fibrosis become resilient.  Thy hopes to help Operation Smile exchange information through telemedicine and to bring modern technology to a hospital which operates on a low capacity.

Debs family

Everybody’s Angels

The Debs Family has been a strong supporter of Everybody’s Angels, an organization that educates, promotes and raises funds for non-profit organizations is the Bay Area. Through their family philanthropic fund known as the Bodri Foundation, Ruth, John, Catherine and Bob Debs began working together as a family to help identify non-profit organizations and projects to fund. Some or the organizations they have funded are Compass Community Services, Insight Prison Project, Jump Start, Seven Tepees, National Public Radio, Foundation, Ramapo Anchorage, the Proctor Foundation and Teach for America.

Camran Nezhat

OB/GYN and Surgery at Stanford University

Dr. Nezhat is a clinical professor of OB/GYN at Stanford University. Considered the father of laproscopy, he led the revolution in laproscopic surgery. Many called his ideas “medical heresy”, but due to his diligent and unending efforts to spread his vision, Dr Nezhat’s techniques are now being implemented all over the world. Her personally finances and supports seven fellows who work closely with him in his Welch Road office, steps away from Stanford Hospital, so that he may instruct and nurture their abilities.

Don M. Franklin

Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Don is a personal services volunteer and a reader over the airwaves for Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. For Don, volunteering is an opportunity to facilitate independence and self reliance in the blind and visually impaired. over the last several decades, Don has volunteered for many non-profit organization. Don has been the recipient of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company Frederick W. Mielke Jr. Award for Outstanding Community Service.

Joan Siltanen

Assistance League of Diablo Valley

Joan volunteers 70 hours per month for the Assistance League of Diablo Valley, which is dedicated to improving the lives of he residents in her community. These services include nine separate programs, ranging from Operation School Bell, which provides clothing to school children in need, to hearing and vision screening, to giving deserving individuals scholarships to college, Joan served as Chapter President for two years, New Members Orientation Chairwoman for two years, and Projects Research Chairwoman for two years. She has also served for the past six years as a consultant to the National Philanthropic Projects Committee.

Brian Won

Donaldina Cameron House

Brian is under 20 and he selflessly volunteers more then 70 hours a month to the Donaldina Cameron House. He has become a mentor, coach, advisor, role model, and friend to the youth participants of the two programs for which he has become involved. Although Brian attends college and works to pay his tuition, he commutes every weekend to volunteer.