SAN FRANCISCO — From movers to builders, 59 Bay Area community programs were honored as silver and bronze medalists at the KPIX Jefferson Award ceremony.
2023 Silver Medal winners
There’s a former priest, who’s fought poverty with food and housing on the Peninsula for the last 47 years. And a retired professor who’s brought free music lessons to thousands of Oakland students for nearly a quarter century.
- Watch video of the 2024 Jefferson Awards Ceremony here
And a former teacher who’s helped students close the summer learning gap for 35 years.
Individuals who have shifted the food supply chain in the pandemic to save hundreds of small farms and small businesses. and tackled rising food insecurity at the same.
Two women who turned blighted public land into farms to nourish their Richmond communities. Two San Francisco men who helped Black entrepreneurs secure grant applications to support their small businesses.
We honored a now-retired 95-year-old woman whose longtime nonprofit gives families two weeks of free clothes to help them get from welfare to work.
And an East Bay man who teaches the creative side of coding so people can get jobs in a fast-growing tech sector.
Our Jefferson Award winners shine a light on injustice, provide free emergency preparedness training, give free sessions in financial planning and keep our coastlines clean.
They’ve created a place where physically and developmentally challenged young people can play sports and where foster youth can beat the odds and graduate from high school and go to college.
One winner provides affordable healthcare to the South Bay’s poorest and two winners support cancer patients with a free independent second opinions on their diagnosis.
Our local heroes serve low income families and homeless with food and clothes. And they show you’re never too old to serve.
Take the 82-year-old who’s volunteered more than three decades at the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens. And the 86-year-old who sells his handmade wooden creations for food bank donations.
Each of our 2022 winners receives a bronze medal. And we will announce 5 silver medalists who will be considered for a national Jefferson Award later this year.
Sharon Chin is a general assignment reporter who also profiles Jefferson Award winners for KPIX 5 Eyewitness News. Since she joined KPIX 5 in 1997, Chin has reported everything from fires to features, from politics to perspective pieces, but she feels a special sense of pride bringing viewers the stories of Jefferson Award winners. She herself feels inspired as she shares the stories of our community’s heroes.