The HeART Bridge: Turning Pages Together
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
CityHeARTHelp Long Beach BEGIN. AGAIN. Inspire new chapters and community connection now.
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How your gift becomes part of the story
Your donation writes the next chapter. Here’s how:
$18.25 Supports Street HeART: prints and distributes 25 copies of each issue of our street paper, which shares local voices and provides direct financial assistance to neighbors impacted by homelessness.
$35 Provides up to 100 households per week with HeARTy Foods grocery bags and Free Lunch Friday hot meals.
$50 Supports Veterans Homefront HeARTLine, offering personalized resource connections, peer support, and tangible aid for veterans and their families.
$75 Supports the daily cost for a high school student to attend the Art from Ashes Youth Storytelling Summit, where they experience healing, leadership opportunities, empowerment, and creative expression that they bring home to share with the Long Beach community.
$115.60 Powers a daily segment of CityHeART Radio, keeping community voices on the air and strengthening neighborhood connections.
$265 Provides one month of health and wellness supplies for WholeHeART WholeHealth, connecting neighbors with primary care, mental health services, and ongoing wellness resources.
$312.50 Supports monthly costs of YOUConnect's resource navigation and provides personal sessions to help households secure identification, access benefits, or schedule healthcare appointments.
$415 Sustains monthly HeART to Home deliveries, providing essential household-supply bundles to neighbors moving from crisis toward stability after housing insecurity or trauma.
$535 Invests in HeART Bridge coordination — the backbone that connects every CityHeART program with case managers, volunteers, and peers and builds community with storytelling, resources, therapeutic programming, and compassionate care.
$1,220 Underwrites an entire month of integrated programs, keeping Long Beach’s creative, caring heartbeat strong across print, radio, youth art, veteran support, health access, shared meals, therapeutic programming, household supports, and resource navigation and connection.
My story with CityHeART started with the smell of espresso and the hum of conversation in a Downtown Long Beach coffee shop... 10 years ago :)
I was born and raised in this city, shaped by its streets, its ocean air, its art, its music, and the countless small moments with neighbors who made me believe in community. I have always been so happy and grateful to call Long Beach home, yet I was also deeply aware that many of my neighbors were navigating life’s twists and turns without the steady support that community can offer.
When I was 22, I met with friends in a Downtown Long Beach coffee shop and imagined something bigger than us: a place where art and service could live side by side for the purpose of wrapping community around neighbors walking alone. This is what inspired our vision of loving wholeheARTedly.
This dream became CityHeART.
From that coffee shop conversation, we built something alive and powerful. We created a community of volunteers, artists, storytellers, peers, and helping professionals who come together to support neighbors seeking resources in complex systems while impacted by complex trauma such as homelessness, food insecurity, and violence — AND to listen to each other's stories.
Since 2015, we have been on a mission to ensure that our community members are seen, heard, and connected. By wholeheARTedly loving our community and sharing its stories, we dignify and value everyone we serve.
When we opened our Resource Hub in 2018, we built the HeART Bridge, a way to link volunteers, peers, and case managers so no one would walk from one chapter to the next without a community behind them.
Every step of our journey has been about more than programs. It has been about loving people, wholeheARTedly.
This year’s plot twist:
This year, the need in our city is deeper than I’ve ever seen. Resources are significantly stretched, funding streams have slowed, and nonprofits everywhere are in huge need — our story right now is no different.
The truth is hard to share, but honest: without a strong Long Beach Gives campaign, we cannot keep these lifelines steady.
We need to raise $10,000 by September 18 to keep the HeART Bridge strong.
This isn’t about expanding someday. It’s about making sure we can open our doors tomorrow.
BEGIN. AGAIN.
This year, our Long Beach Gives Campaign culminates with an Art from Ashes Magazine release night at a collaborative storytelling event with our friends at Long Beach Community Theater and the Long Beach Soul Collective. The theme of the night is BEGIN. AGAIN. — Stories of Unexpectedly Starting Over.
With that theme on our hearts, we want to share how your support of our mission right now becomes part of someone else’s next chapter. Your gift isn’t just a donation, it is an investment in the creative spaces, shared meals, health connections, and resource bridges that help neighbors BEGIN. AGAIN. with dignity and hope. Every dollar helps CityHeART keep stories alive, provide tangible care, and create moments where fresh starts are not only possible, but celebrated.
Every donation is a pen in a neighbor’s hand, helping them turn the page and write the next chapter of their life with dignity and joy. CityHeART simply provides the paper, ink, and a circle of support.
This campaign is about community, not charity. We are neighbors writing a shared Long Beach story together. Whether you give $15 or $1,000, share this page with a friend, or simply show up to cheer, you become part of someone’s new beginning.
With gratitude and hope,
Paige PelonisFounder & Executive Director, CityHeARTpaige@ourcityheart.org
Every story in Long Beach deserves to be told and supported. With your help, we can make sure CityHeART continues to be the place where stories of resilience, art, and community find their next chapter.