Neighborhood Wellness Foundation

A nonprofit organization
Fundraise

0% complete

$250,000 Goal

About Us

Co-founded in 2015 by Gina Warren, Pharm.D., and Marilyn Woods, Neighborhood Wellness Foundation (NW) is a community-based organization with a mission to navigate and disrupt intergenerational trauma and poverty in Del Paso Heights (DPH) and surrounding neighborhoods. This year, 2026, ROOTS to RISE (RTR) is NW’s community-embedded approach to navigating and disrupting intergenerational poverty and trauma focusing on housing stability including support for the unhoused, behavioral health and substance use support. More than a single program, RTR is a coordinated pathway that brings together four service areas — Healing Circles, Restore Legacies, Pacers Take Space, and Higher Heights — to walk alongside neighbors as they build stability, connection, and opportunity. NW operates from the granular to the executive level with a multigenerational, interdisciplinary team — executives, health educators, case managers, neighborhood navigators and peer leaders.  NW works across seven service locations including schools, community spaces, and the Neighborhood Wellness Center. The RTR non-clinical team provides relationship-based support and connects residents to housing, healthcare, education, workforce opportunities, substance use recovery supports, and licensed behavioral health clinicians as requested and as needed. By strengthening regulation, belonging, and access to opportunity, RTR helps children, youth, and adults move toward healthier lives with capacity building, short-term stability to develop into long-term socioeconomic mobility, interrupting cycles of adversity across generations.

Our Promise

Our promise is to honor the power of neighbors lifting neighbors. Neighborhood Wellness Foundation intentionally builds from within the community we serve and from the bottom up — recognizing that life experiences which created barriers to health and socioeconomic mobility also create insight, leadership, and connection. Neighborhood Wellness Foundation operates as an interdisciplinary, multigenerational team where lived experience and professional training are equally valued. Our neighborhood navigators bring community-rooted knowledge that cannot be replicated by traditional service models, and their ability to build authentic relationships makes meaningful engagement possible. Executives, college-educated health educators and case managers, and neighborhood navigators work together in shared spaces and daily practice, aligning strategy, partnerships, and direct support. This integration ensures decisions are informed by real community conditions while services remain coordinated, responsive, and accountable. Because trust comes first, residents are more likely to engage with housing, healthcare, behavioral health, substance use recovery, education, and workforce opportunities. Through this connected approach, families gain stability and opportunity, supporting healthier outcomes and sustained progress toward long-term socioeconomic mobility across generations.



 


Mission

Our mission is to navigate and disrupt intergenerational poverty and trauma in Del Paso Heights (DPH) and surrounding Sacramento neighborhoods: 95838, 95815 and adjacent neighborhoods. This is done in our ROOTS to RISE: Regulate, Outreach, Open Pathways, Teach, Support to Program Restore, Interrupt cycles, Stabilze, Empower for improvements in behavioral health, substance use disorders housing stability, educational/vocational attainment, socioeconomic mobility and restoration of a culture of excellence.

Needs

Essential School Pantries — $20,000 for Supporting Learning, Stability, and Opportunity

Neighborhood Wellness Foundation seeks support to operate Essential Pantries at five school sites in Del Paso Heights and surrounding communities — Woodlake Elementary, MLK Tech Academy, Grant Union High School, Capital College and Career Academy, and the SCOE Senior Extension (including youth supported by Kids with Kids).

The pantries are part of NW’s ROOTS to RISE approach, integrating all four service pathways — Pacers Take Space, Higher Heights, Restore Legacies, and Healing Circles. While NW provides behavioral health support, mentorship, family engagement, and pathways to education and employment, students cannot fully benefit when basic needs remain unmet.

Food insecurity and basic needs instability affect attendance, concentration, and classroom behavior. Some students arrive at school hungry or without hygiene supplies or appropriate clothing, and stigma and transportation barriers limit access to outside resources. Many girls also experience period poverty, missing class due to lack of menstrual products and losing instructional time. These unmet needs increase stress and reduce school engagement.

School-based Essential Pantries provide confidential access to nutritious food, hygiene items, clothing, and menstrual products, while also serving as an entry point to NW supports and connections to longer-term community resources.

Funding Goal: $15,000

Support will provide shelf-stable foods, hygiene supplies, warm clothing, culturally appropriate and allergy-aware options, and menstrual products. Meeting basic needs improves attendance, engagement, and wellbeing and helps students remain on track toward graduation and long-term socioeconomic mobility.

By stabilizing basic needs today, we create the conditions for learning, belonging, and opportunity tomorrow.

Equity Statement

Neighborhood Wellness Foundation (NW) operates through an interdisciplinary ROOTS to RISE team of sixteen staff members and five active volunteers. Our team reflects the community we serve — with more than 500 collective years rooted in Del Paso Heights and over 80 combined years of incarceration history among staff. Experiences that often limit employment elsewhere are valued at NW as expertise. By transforming lived experience into leadership, we have built an unmatched level of connection and trust that allows meaningful impact across behavioral health, substance use recovery, homelessness, educational attainment, violence prevention, and socioeconomic mobility.

We intentionally built our workforce around insight and perspective, standing firmly on our mission to disrupt intergenerational poverty and trauma. Our work centers on Del Paso Heights neighbors who have been disproportionately affected across generations by inequities in education, healthcare, housing, financial systems, employment, and the justice system. Through ROOTS to RISE, NW partners with these same systems to improve access, coordination, and outcomes.

NW is committed to ongoing capacity building for staff, neighbors, and partners. We work to shift both how systems engage our community and how residents see their own opportunity. When understanding improves, interactions improve. When services are responsive and accessible, achievement becomes possible. Our goal is for our neighbors to be healthy, educated, employed, stable, and able to build economic security for the next generation.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Neighborhood Wellness Foundation

Year Established

2015

Tax id (EIN)

47-4874487

Guidestar

Mission Category

Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy

Operating Budget

$1,000,001-$5 million

Organization Need

Funding: Program, Funding: Other, Funding: Unrestricted, In-Kind Donations, Volunteers

Demographics Served

Youth & Children, Low-income individuals/families, Black/African American

BIPOC Leadership

Both the Executive Director & Board Chair

Local Counties Served

Sacramento

Equity Statement

Equity Statement

Address

3805 Clay Street
Sacramento, CA 95838

Service areas

Sacramento, CA, US, 95838

Sacramento, CA, US, 95815

Phone

916-335-8818

Email

contact@neighborhoodwellness.org

Website

https://neighborhoodwellness.org

Social Media