5 Remarkable Nonprofits in San Diego Making a Difference This Giving Season

The estimated 10,000 nonprofits in San Diego strive to improve the lives of people, animals, the community, the environment, and more in myriad ways. It’s a reflection not only of the spectrum of need here, but the limitless passion and talent among us that can — and does — address it. Though most nonprofit leaders will tell you their ultimate goal is to live in a world where their services are no longer needed, in the meantime, their contributions are immeasurable. 

Before founding D’Vine Path, Lenila Batali was already quite familiar with the challenges and rewards of working with individuals on the autism spectrum. As a mother of a child with autism, she volunteered in her daughter’s high school WorkAbility program, a skills training program that concludes for students at age 22. She recognized a unique gap where high-functioning individuals who, she says, “just need a little bit of coaching, a little bit of help,” didn’t have many options when they aged out of the program. She learned of a free viticulture and hospitality program offered in Temecula, and enrolled as a coach for one of the high school students, and it was all the spark she needed to ignite her fire. “They learned so much, not just vocational [skills] — sweeping floors and wiping tables down. They actually learned information,” she remembers. Inspired, she went home with an idea for their family ranch. “I told my husband, ‘This is what we need to do: We need to take out our avocados and put a vineyard in,’” she says. 

And so they did, removing 350 avocado trees and planting 500 vines on their three acres in Fallbrook in 2017. Batali charged a nominal $800 a year for eight students to come and learn viticulture at her home, where she let them each “adopt” two vines to care for, had guest speakers come assist with launching the vineyard, and took field trips to neighboring wineries to learn more about operations. In 2019, the program became the nonprofit D’Vine Path, a working farm and vineyard that teaches young adults with Asperger’s and other high functioning disabilities essential skills in programs including viticulture and winemaking, farming, art, and culinary arts. It grew to eight acres with the acquisition of and move to a neighboring property that was previously the setting for the Tori Spelling B&B reality TV show, Inn Love. 

Today, D’Vine Path has 40 students in its programs. Tuition is paid through funding from the San Diego Regional Center and the California Department of Rehabilitation, so all attend without any cost to them or their families. All other donations D’Vine Path receives go directly into the program and maintaining the operation. “I think it’s important for people to understand that just because you get grants and funding and federal or state support, that doesn’t mean that you’re just completely self-sufficient,” says Batali. “This is where there are huge gaps to be filled.”

Batali isn’t short on success stories to share, whether it’s small moments where students surprise others in the field with the winemaking know-how they’ve earned at D’Vine Path, or big wins like former students graduating from the program and making their dream of working at a winery a reality. “I just want to empower them. I just want to expand their horizons. I want them to meet new people, see new things, learn new concepts,” she says. “Our [students] come to D’Vine Path, and no one has a disability. They’re just themselves. They find joy. We learn things, but we do it together. We’re all equal. That, to me, is the biggest thing.” dvinepath.org

Though professional soccer player and San Diego resident Alex Morgan announced her retirement earlier this year, she is far from slowing down. In 2023, the international sports icon created the eponymous Alex Morgan Foundation, extending her ability to make an impact for women and girls long after she walked off the pitch for the last time as a pro this past September. 

“The mission of the Alex Morgan Foundation is to create equity and opportunity for girls and women on the field and off,” says Laura Wolf Stein, the foundation’s executive director. “We have three impact pillars, or giving priorities, that are a direct reflection of what Alex cares about most. The first one is sports equity. The second is opportunities for girls, and the third is support for moms, with a particular focus on new moms.”

Wolf Stein describes the organization as a “grant-plus,” where the foundation provides essential funding to programs that exemplify its mission, but also additional resources and guidance, including the involvement of Morgan herself. “She has such a big platform. She reaches and touches so many people. The media pays attention to what she’s doing. So we try to utilize that to help shine a light on the issues that matter to the foundation and also on the programs and organizations that we work with,” says Wolf Stein.

Among Alex Morgan Foundation’s first beneficiaries was Let’s Go South Bay!, a soccer and empowerment curriculum for girls age 11 to 18. The foundation has now fully funded the program, which provides a free soccer camp for 60 girls at Southwestern College, for a second year, and activates partnerships and facilitates connections to further support the club, from photography and videography to equipment and media. The foundation also operates Alex’s Homebreak, a program that hosts youth girls’ teams and chaperones at Snapdragon Stadium for San Diego Wave FC home games. A partnership with Rady Children’s Hospital and the Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation provides funding for programs in patient services not covered by insurance, as well as the development of The Confident Closet, which will debut in 2025. This program, offered through the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital, will offer children who have experienced trauma brand-new clothing and accessories for a dignified experience and a sense of security as they navigate challenging situations. Most recently, the foundation announced its Coaching Moms Initiative, geared to address the childcare crisis and offer support for high performing women coaches who are also moms.

“Our foundation does not only live in sports,” explains Wolf Stein. “It really is focused on helping girls and women find a confident path forward on the field and off. So, sports equity and getting more kids to play is important, but getting more moms to feel supported and getting more girls to feel good about themselves and be confident in the world — those are all things that we care about and that we put money against.”

An eventual goal for the foundation is to expand its programs and services beyond San Diego and broaden its impact in the country and beyond. However, San Diego remains in its founder’s heart.  “Alex and her husband, Servando [Carrasco], really want to have an impact here in San Diego,” says Wolf Stein. “They’re very much rooted in the community, and they want to give back to where they live.” alexmorganfoundation.org

When it began in 1960, Rancho Coastal Humane Society was a little yellow house surrounded by pasture and dirt roads. Nearly 65 years later, one of the dirt roads is Interstate 5, and the little animal rescue center in the little yellow house has just completed a long-overdue renovation to its campus that added much-needed space for its many services including and far beyond animal adoptions. 

“We have some great momentum now,” says RCHS president Judi Sanzo. “It’s interesting, the physical buildings themselves have drawn attention to us, and now we are telling people who are looking at us what we’ve been doing for the last many years, and they say, ‘I don’t know you did that.’ Now we’re going to be in a position where we can do more of what we’ve been doing all along.”

What RCHS has been doing for decades is fostering meaningful connections between animals and humans in a number of ways, including, of course, offering animal adoptions. However, their unique mission is to help alleviate the overcrowding that’s occurring in county shelters, which are operating at 150 percent capacity or greater. Sanzo refers to RCHS as the “relief valve” for county shelters, assessing animals and bringing those determined to be highly adoptable to RCHS with hope that they’ll move on quickly into a loving home. “And that’s been our success,” says Sanzo.

But it’s far from the shelter’s only success. RCHS also works hard to ensure those homes are truly “forever homes,” including a foster-to-adopt program that allows people to try the animal in their home to be sure it’s the right fit, sending a representative from the shelter to the home to help both sides settle in. A behavior and training team can help new owners address behaviors that no one may have anticipated. 

The center also works in several other ways to keep animals and their owners together, including offering financial assistance for seniors whose pets are facing an extraordinary veterinary expense, a community pet food bank, and providing pet boarding for seniors and veterans facing extended hospital stays, many of whom may not commit to care until they know their pet has a place to stay. “Because in the military,” says Sanzo, “you don’t leave your buddies behind.” A new medical facility, created in the recent renovation, will offer low- or no-cost veterinary care for local rescue groups and other groups within the community.

Perhaps the shelter’s most powerful way of supporting the deep emotional bond between humans and their pets is through its Animal Safehouse Program, offering temporary pet boarding for people in crisis. “When we did a study back in the ’90s, more than 50 percent of the people in abusive relationships said they wouldn’t leave an abusive relationship because there was no place for them to secure shelter which would also care for their pets. And, they were fearful that in leaving an abusive household, the abuser would turn anger towards the pet, so they wouldn’t leave it behind,” explains Sanzo. Created in 1997, the program supports people as they find their own safety and then reunites them with their pets when they are able. 

Though its beginnings were humble, the shelter’s impact for people and animals in the community continues to be enormous. Says public relations director John Van Zante, “Even before I came to work here, I thought of RCHS as ‘The Little Shelter That Could.’ Now I believe that we have become ‘The Little Shelter That Does!’” rchumanesociety.org

In Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, the adorable title character proclaims, “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.” And very much like a real-life Lorax, Tree San Diego does just that. For ten years, the nonprofit has been working to re-green San Diego’s urban areas — a true nonprofit embodiment of that adorable little orange guy’s proclamation. 

“Obviously, our mission is to expand, serve, and forest, and somewhat speak for the trees, but also provide a holistic approach to investment and implementation of programs that bring natural solutions to the built environment,” says Elektra Fike-Date, Tree San Diego’s executive director. Naturally, this means planting trees, but that’s just the beginning. “We’re looking at the sustaining elements of that mission, which involves a much broader approach, and that means investing in the people and the workforce that take care of our urban forest and urban greening installments. It means looking at what policies are in place, locally, regionally, and federally, and then also exploring the planning piece of that for the future.”

Tree San Diego actively engages the community with education and volunteer as well as paid opportunities that foster a deeper sense of understanding and value of our urban forests, as well as developing skills for planning, planting, and caring for the city’s urban forest. Funding comes primarily from state grants, but Fike-Data expects that private and corporate donations will grow increasingly important to ensure that Tree San Diego can continue to do its work, from connecting those looking to add trees with growers who have excess trees to advising for-profit entities looking to achieve specified environmental goals and municipalities that want to invest in urban greening. And then, the real work is just beginning.

“It takes a labor force, it takes irrigation, it takes funding, it takes long-term care and contract growing. It takes urban planning three years in advance for trees that aren’t going in the ground for another five years,” continues Fike-Data. “And while that seems incredibly overwhelming, there’s a lot of hope there, and so many people are invested in the conversation.”

“We’re at a time, now more than ever, when we need to double down on environmental projects and programs like this to ensure that our environment thrives in the future, and that’s going to be, I think, at the center of all of our conversations now,” she continues. “We’re going to have to advocate more and more for ways to address the effects of climate change, and not just in trees, but in all green infrastructure. It’s going to be a challenge, but I think the environmental community is up for it.” treesandiego.org

Though at face value they seem contradictory, food waste and food insecurity are nonetheless two dominant and concurrently ongoing issues in our food system. For former restaurateur Chuck Samuelson, these problems weighed heavy on his mind. “About 40 percent of everything we grow does not make it to the people who could use it,” he says. “On the other hand, 47 million Americans are hungry — one in five children. It’s horrible.” The former owner of Bird Rock Café and founder of the nonprofit Kitchens for Good decided he wanted to do more work that directly relates to the food system as a whole, and ramp up work to address food insecurity. 

In 2022, he launched Heal the Earth with the goal of supporting local farmers. “Who are farmers? [They] are the foundation of our food system. There’s a lot of things wrong with the food system from top to bottom, but you have to start at the foundation,” says Samuelson. With the help of a couple grants, he leased space on a farm in Vista, and plans to open a farmer training school on site, as well as a farm store, where he will sell produce from his operation as well as produce of other local farmers starting in early 2025.

Samuelson, however, who ran an award-winning restaurant and already successfully launched one nonprofit, thinks much bigger than a simple, quaint farmstand. Heal the Earth has secured a partnership with the City of Escondido, and is planning to sign a lease on a 40,000-square-foot building to become an eventual food hub, where farmers can come together under one roof to sell their goods — like a farmers market, but without the inconvenience of limited availability for a few hours one day a week. He plans for the space to also house an agricultural technology accelerator to share innovations to help modernize farmers’ operations, as well as an incubator kitchen to launch new food business.
“I long believed that that the American dream was a good job and a paycheck, and I don’t feel that way anymore,” says Samuelson. “I think that’s a starting point. I think that real independence is owning your own business. Being the master of your own economic destiny is the key to success.” 

Also under the roof, Samuelson plans to have a value-added processing facility, offering farmers another income source by enabling them to extend the shelf life of harvests with preserved goods — which also reduces the amount of produce that might otherwise go to waste. Finally, says Samuelson, “I’d love to have a food hall, because imagine someone going through our incubator space and our business accelerator for food makers, then going right into our food hall to have a safe space to really launch their product or their business and try it out? It’s all about connections, and connecting consumers to where their food really comes from.”

“We need to take back control of the food supply chain for our own benefit,” continues Samuelson, citing recent studies that show that organic, regenerative food is up to eight times more nutritionally dense than what he calls “big factory farm food.”

Still in its nascency, Samuelson estimates his plans to come to fruition in roughly two years. “I want to test this idea of this market out in Escondido and this farm store at our farm,” he says, “and use those as a template to take those kinds of businesses into the communities that really need them.”
healtheearth.info