“Honor his life in remembrance.
Pay tribute to the legacy
through active community service.
– The King Center

mental health
A freefall from the highest heights or an average life, is all the same experience, believe it or not. Extreme pain and suffering, self induced or violently enforced, is not the story of all our lives, nor is sipping champagne in the South Pacific on our fully staffed yacht. But on either extreme or somewhere in between, mental health affects us all.  We exist together, connected by neighborhoods and greater societies, and often judge from afar, at what is crazy to us, never understanding they were not really bad, but did not recognize, they were simply going nuts, yet help was all around.

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from Billionaire Bossy, Livesosa and Hustle Crowe
this is… Block Visit 

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“We must listen to the real life childhood stories, the root cause of our pain in order to understand how we heal as adults.” – Dr. Gina Warren, Neighborhood Wellness  Foundation

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Wellness & Resolve: A Sacramento Neighborhood Honors
Dr. King’s Legacy in a High Wire Act of Community Service
by Kendall F. Person

American Identity 
We know what happened after the civil war. After the spilling of more blood, than all other US engaged combat combined. After a fight that pit brother against brother, black slaves against freed Black men. After nearly burning the United Confederate States to the ground, and after finding victory in the rubble, by rebuilding America’s southern states. After a country of immigrants and former slaves ushered in a new era of war games, in fact, no other nation had yet to even imagine how to play. And after solidifying World power, a still very young nation, went even higher; for they did not gloat, but used their newfound and unprecedented  wealth and respect  to shine a beacon of light that emitted peace prosperity for the whole wide world to see. And even after it had become painfully clear, that the end of  slavery did nothing to resolve hate based on race as Jim Crow was nearly as disrespectful of humanity as its predecessor.

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community service
““She’s so pretty”. Circle of Life

Gina Jones grew up in the same neighborhood as her husband, Sacramento City Councilmember Allen W. Warren, and their journey from junior high school sweethearts to man and wife, was chronicled by The Neighborhood in the Circle of Life.

In 1996, Gina received her Doctorate in Clinical Pharmacy from the University of California, San Francisco, affording her the title of Dr. and their union changed her last name from Jones to Warren. But  to those of us who went to Grant High School during the same formative years, we still see our Gina Jones: Head cheerleader, a brilliant student and one of the prettiest girls we ever did see. But I am not sure if she even noticed that, as her outward appearance was not inwardly connected to her identity. for she gave everyone the same genuine smile. In the more than 3 decades I have known her, I have never heard anyone speak even a cross word about her.

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“The spirit of service
is the heart of humanity.”
– Lailah Gifty Akita

mental health & a president
We cannot turn away, no matter how hard we try. One glance at the news, out of the corner of our eyes, that our daily trials and tribulations could be multiplied, if the North Korean state of affairs cannot be calmed. A political state, we do not live in and even though a transition takes place every four or eight years, feelings of uncontrolled helplessness, simply do not translate. But the mind, in all of its complexed wonder, develops its own conclusion and triggers an appropriate onslaught of  emotions.

As individuals, each and every man and woman, must ultimately live and die based upon our own choices, most good, some bad. But how often do we make the connection, that by nourishing our mental health, the scales may tip, avoiding disaster. It is no secret that while The Neighborhood is all-inclusive, it is part of the resistance and no fan of Trump. However, our commitment to mental health awareness supersedes political tribalism. And when it appears to the commoner and the mental expert community that he is suffering under the weight of  a formidable mental health disorder, that at times it bares down,  and the anger fueled by bafflement  is not always aimed at Trump, but to those who not only pretend not to see it, but try to convince us that neither do we. And while there is help out there, the stigma of mental illness and the lust of power, close their eyes, and pretend its magnificence and hope it is not nuts.  But the stress put on race  relations, has reached around the world: nuts to us all.

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You Are Not Alone
from the legendary Mavis Staples

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race and a dream
After a man named Dr. Martin Luther King  revealed his dream, clearing space in our heads, that no matter how great a nation,  only God – in a God-fearing world – can give or take our civil rights. But even He,  had neither the gall nor the  audacity to  do it all, so Free Will  was given to us.  and every boogeyman is of our own creation. And after the celebration of our first Black President; gave visibility to half a nation, revealed the other half felt lost.  And after comprehension that if collusion – CRIMINAL! – but our President is not Russian, he is one of us and the checks and balances, takes us all the way back to start.  After Alabama – of all places – saved our souls, and confirmed there was a line that they dared not cross.

But after all of that, Another day of reckoning of American identity, seems all but lost. But  Sacramento – the north part – decided not to stand down,  but to walk the high wire, as it appears to be the only way out.  So the volatile subject of race and the stigma-covered issue of mental health, are the subjects of Martin Luther King Day and the White House itself.

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community service
The Warren’s are quite notable in Sacramento, but for all of their successes and tribulations, being a part of and giving back to a community, that they believe helped to shape the people they have become, has always been at the forefront for the River City power couple. But today belongs to Dr. Warren, whose Neighborhood Wellness Foundation will spotlight mental health and deliver information directly into the community in hopes to defeat the stigma. And perhaps they will discover, it is crazy that binds us to race over nation and we can cure ourselves.

— this is… The Neighborhood