Valencia Photographer and Mom Carries on her Work on Behalf of the Rebuilding America’s Veterans Nonprofit, Despite Personal Health Battle By Stephen K. Peeples As vice president and media relations director of Rebuilding America’s Warriors, formerly the Iraq Star Foundation, Micaela Bensko has been helping military veterans scarred in combat get free reconstructive or plastic surgery since 2007. The ...

Summer Camps and Year-Round Programs ‘Lighting a Fire of Change’ on Behalf of Special-Needs Kids By Stephen K. Peeples Eva Payne, Project Kindle executive director, Santa Clarita resident and mother of six, is the latest KHTS Santa Clarita Unsung Hero presented by Mercedes-Benz of Valencia. As founder and executive director of the nonprofit Project Kindle in 1998 when she was ...

Single Mom Who Became a Community Bank CEO Gives Back, Personally and Professionally By Stephen K. Peeples Tamara Gurney, the latest KHTS Santa Clarita Unsung Hero presented by Mercedes-Benz of Valencia, is a single mom who has built Mission Valley Bank into a thriving $250-million a year business over the past dozen years as its founding president and CEO. At ...

SCV Food Pantry and Executive Director’s mission:‘No child or senior in the Santa Clarita Valley should go to bed hungry.’ By Stephen K. Peeples As executive director of the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry on Railroad Avenue in Newhall, Belinda Crawford has earned a reputation for her unflagging passion to help hungry people, especially kids and seniors. As she puts ...

By Stephen K. Peeples As a senior partner with Valencia-based NewMarket Careers, Sue Reynolds is an accomplished small business owner who helps Santa Clarita Valley employees and the companies who need them find each other. But outside her role as a mover and shaker in the Santa Clarita business community, Reynolds is a super-volunteer, although she would never refer to ...

By Stephen K. Peeples As director of volunteers and recreation at the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center in Newhall for more than eight years, Robin Clough coordinates all the volunteer programs, and manages the 30,000-plus hours the center’s nearly 1,000 volunteers contribute every year.  She’s also a tireless advocate for girls, women and especially seniors in the SCV, usually behind ...

Roger Presgrove has worked in the Christian humanitarian aid field for more than 20 years, and since 2005 the Santa Clarita resident has served as president of Help the Children, one of the nation’s Top 10 charities according to independent watchdog organizations. Over the past two decades, Help the Children and other nonprofit organizations Presgrove has helmed have shipped more ...

By Stephen K. Peeples As the community liaison officer with College of the Canyons’ Public Information Office since November 2006, Jasmine Foster has a long list of official duties. But her volunteer spirit extends far beyond her regular job, contributing untold hours to nonprofit groups in all corners of the Santa Clarita Valley, without expecting anything in return, except maybe ...

As host of AM 1220 KHTS’s “Non-Profit Spotlight” show on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon since 2005, Janice Zenon Murray keeps our community posted on Santa Clarita Valley nonprofit organizations, activities and fundraising events. Murray holds forth live from the station’s satellite kiosk at the Westfield Valencia Town Center Mall, the only regular program to originate there. Also a ...

By Stephen K. Peeples Rusty George, as lead pastor for the Real Life Church in Valencia since 2003, has assembled like-spirited staff and built an entire faith-based community around the church that’s involved in all kinds of community outreach that makes a positive difference in the Santa Clarita Valley. George does it not for fame or fortune, but because it’s ...