Our community relies on support and services from nonprofits. Join in.

In her youth in Castroville, Leticia Ibarra Anthony sometimes resented going with her family to work in the fields picking strawberries – she would rather sleep in or go to the pool, kid stuff. But she and her brother made it fun; they would have strawberry fights and eat their fill.

Fast forward a few years. Ibarra got married, moved to Greenfield, started a family and began her career in early childhood education. Her children had learning disabilities so she wound up homeschooling them, but continued to work and volunteer in Head Start and after-school programs. She found that she could relate to kids who other teachers found frustrating and uncooperative.

“The kids just need to connect with you. That was my passion and still is,” she says. “But sometimes you are called to do something else.”

That “something else” has evolved for Ibarra. She started by reaching out to parents of students with disabilities to advocate to get their needs met. Then, as she tells it, “one thing led to another.” She got involved in Community Emergency Response Volunteers (CERV) as a volunteer doing disaster preparedness outreach. She became active in Líderes Campesinos, advocating for the community’s needs, and connected to Celebration Foundation during the pandemic, then got trained up as a community health worker, sharing information with South County farmworkers about vaccinations and the right to stay home from work and isolate, and distributing masks and food. She later began volunteering with Brighter Bites, helping package fresh produce.

“I think one person can make a ripple effect,” she says. “If I can’t be over there helping, I’ll be over here helping.”

Ibarra lives a life deeply devoted to volunteerism – it’s just what she does. I spoke to her on Christmas Eve and her plan for Christmas was to deliver food to unhoused people in Soledad.

Her commitment to the community happens on the ground, face-to-face as a volunteer. She provides muscle to organizations, but she is loathe to take credit. “It’s not about me, it’s about organizations that are willing to put out time and effort and energy,” Ibarra says.

I have that network of organizations on my mind as the year comes to an end, partly because people like Ibarra are spending the holiday helping others. It’s also because everyone is invited to make an impact through Monterey County Gives! to raise money for local nonprofits that are out there doing the work that frontline volunteers like Ibarra know needs to be done.

MCGives! Is an initiative of Monterey County Weekly in partnership with the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation. There are 206 participating organizations that all could use your help – and I invite you, whatever your means and whatever your interest, to join in as a philanthropist.

Among the many partners that contribute to an overall matching, helping your donago further, are several local businesses, including Cannery Row Company. I asked CEO Ted Balestreri why.

Balestreri spent his childhood in Brooklyn, and remembers spending time the Boys Club (before it was Boys and Girls). It was less about mentorship than it was simply a place to be, and to play basketball. “It was more like camaraderie,” he says. “This was a place to go that we thought was a safe haven.”

Balestreri today is most called to donate to organizations that directly invest in training up and coaching young people, particularly that help with culinary career pathways. “The most important thing is the human mind,” he says. “If we can capture as many young people as possible and help them to succeed, we’re doing the right thing. It’s the best investment in the world.”

You can make your own choice about the best investment by donating, at any amount, to any variety of nonprofits, using a handy online shopping cart checkout system. As of Dec. 23, MCGives! had raised a whopping $9.7 million in challenge gifts and individual donations combined, over $2 million more than this time last year.

Joining in – as a volunteer, a donor, or both – is one way to help grow the ripple effect and make a difference.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com. To donate to Monterey County Gives!, visit montereycountygives.com. The deadline to give is midnight on Tuesday, Dec. 31.