Returning home: innovative storytelling with Central Valley women long left unheard

I was born and raised on the west side of Fresno, in a Black and Brown community that has carried both the weight of inequities and the brilliance of resilience for generations. Part of this community’s resilience is that many of us became the first in our families to graduate from college. I now work at a statewide foundation, helping the same community that raised me. Returning home is not just a professional responsibility; it is deeply personal. 

My mother still lives in Fresno, and whenever I return home, I see both the struggles and the strength that shaped me: families working long hours to make ends meet, women carrying their households and communities on their shoulders, and organizations like Cultiva La Salud fighting every day to ensure that women — mothers, sisters, daughters, immigrants — are not just surviving but building a better life for themselves and their families.

Investing in community voices  

Investing in community begins with partnerships between organizations that lead the work in communities and bring those stories to wider audiences.

At Blue Shield of California Foundation, we support a partnership between Cultiva La Salud and Health Affairs to create space for women to share how housing, immigration status, and domestic violence intersect in their daily lives. The Foundation believes domestic violence and health inequities are rooted in systemic issues like gender and economic inequities, and racism. As a statewide funder, we focus on policy and systems change to ensure those most affected can shape the decisions that impact their lives. 

Cultiva La Salud is a Fresno-based community organization, advancing health equity in the Central Valley through prevention, community leadership, and opportunities for women and families. Health Affairs, one of the nation’s leading health policy publications, has taken steps to broaden readers’ perspectives through platforms like Community Voices, which elevates first-person stories not usually found in academic journals.

Listening to women directly 

This spring, I came home not just as a daughter of Fresno, but as a member of the Foundation’s team, Align Systems with Community Priorities. I was there to support the first in-person meeting between Cultiva La Salud and Health Affairs.

We heard directly from women about the fears of deportation that keep them silent, even when domestic violence is present. We heard how shelters can be inaccessible, sometimes 30 to 40 minutes from home with no nearby transportation options, making “safety” feel out of reach. They also shared their resilience: women supporting one another, creating safe spaces for their children, and holding onto dreams once thought out of reach. Their determination is reflected in community innovations such as Cultiva’s community kitchen for local food entrepreneurs, seed grants to launch new businesses, and programs that open pathways to education careers.

Cultiva La Salud, Health Affairs, author RocQuel Johnson, and community members come together to highlight women's voices in the Central Valley.

Going back to Fresno to support efforts like these feels like coming full circle. I grew up in a community where people knew how to make something out of nothing, where the church basement doubled as a safety net, and where storytelling was survival. Now, I get to help create space for those same kinds of stories to reach audiences with the power to shift policy and funding. 

The role of foundations

At Blue Shield of California Foundation, we invest in this type of work because it is about more than one grant or one story. It is about building partnerships where community-rooted organizations like Cultiva La Salud bring forward lived experience, and institutions like Health Affairs provide a platform to amplify it. Neither can do it alone. Together, they represent the kind of innovation needed to change the narrative around domestic violence prevention, immigrant health, and community resilience.

When the people most impacted are given the microphone, their stories do more than inspire. They can shift policies and reshape the conditions that create harm in the first place.

Looking ahead 

The coming months will reveal how this partnership continues to shape the work. Cultiva La Salud and Health Affairs will decide how to share what their partnership will produce. At a time when external crises threaten to silence vulnerable communities, foundations must make space for marginalized voices and support organizations willing to take risks on new forms of storytelling. Providing these platforms opens doors to possibility and ensures that the people most affected help shape the policies and systems that define their futures. 

Photo of Kearney Blvd from Wikipedia