NUHSA announces 2024 Human Services Awards

The North Urban Human Services Alliance (NUHSA) is proud to announce its 2024 Human Services Award recipients and nominees! 

All have made a significant contribution to the health and welfare of our North King County community and have supported or advocated for a strong and accessible health and human services system, strengthening our community through their initiative and leadership.

Recipients and nominees will be honored at NUHSA's 2024 Human Services Awards celebration on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 from 5:00 to 7:00pm at Kenmore City Hall 18120 68th Ave NE.

To join this community celebration, please RSVP by emailing staff@nuhsa.org.

HUMAN SERVICES CHAMPION

Guru Dorje

Guru Dorje is the Director of the Center for Education and Career Opportunities at Shoreline Community College. 

With over 20 years’ experience in education, he specializes in successfully working with high barrier youth and transitioning them to and through a college education. In 2024 Guru oversaw the opening of an innovative program which provides on-campus housing to students experiencing homelessness. 

This initiative is the first of its kind and combines housing with educational and employment support in a single point of contact in a community college setting.

SELECT NOMINEES

Susie Moore

Susie is the lead Family Advocate for the Shoreline School District. Her role helps support student success by connecting families to community services to meet the basic needs of Shoreline students and their families. 

Susie is also one of the leads for the Shoreline PTA Council's FACE (Family & Community Engagement)/DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) team. Susie is a long-time Shoreline SD employee, dedicated to partnering with families to help all students succeed.

Silje Sodal

Silje is the Executive Director of Third Place Commons and former Executive Director of NUHSA. She is an outstanding community advocate and organizer with an extensive history of work with the Shoreline PTA, Third Place Commons, LFP Rotary and a host of other community organizations. 

Silje has been recognized as a regional leader in human service advocacy and is focusing her work on building and connecting communities in North King County.

Maura Query

Maura Query, a City of Kenmore employee, is the founder of Thoughtful Citizens Facebook group. Thoughtful Citizens is all about creating opportunities for people to get involved and give back to their community, because when individuals come together for a common cause, great things can happen! 

Maura is also the founder of the Kenmore Children's Business Fair and a tremendous advocate for the Kenmore community.

Juliana Pooley

Julianna is a leader of Kenmore for People Oriented Places (KPOP) a community action group dedicated to fostering progressive and collaborative dialogue among Kenmore residents and community members and she serves on Kenmore's DEI advisory committee. 

Julianna is also an active volunteer with Undaunted Women, an all-volunteer organization that supports immigrant and refugee women in overcoming social and economic barriers to self-reliance through connections, advocacy, and inspiration in King and Pierce Counties.

YOUTH HUMAN SERVICES LEADERSHIP

Taanvi Arekapudi

Taanvi is a local 15 year-old high school student, author of Uplift Teens Today, creator of Emotion Cards Deck, founder and host of Nexus Mental Health Hub for Schools and the Kenmore Mental Health Resource Fair in August 2024. 

Taanvi has been a longtime youth mental health advocate, and created Nexus which is an online platform providing various resources and self-management tools for enhancing and supporting youth mental health. https://nsd.nexusforschools.com/about-nexus

SELECT NOMINEES

Shlok Rathi

Shlok provides technology assistance to Northshore seniors. About 2 ½ years ago, Shlok approached the Northshore Senior Center about setting up hours as a volunteer to help anyone who wanted assistance getting set up on their phone or tablet. 

During COVID, he had taught his grandfather how to use his iPhone to keep in touch by Facetime while they were isolating, and he wanted to pass that skill on to others. The NorthShore Senior Center does not typically allow minors to volunteer, so he approached the CEO with a pitchbook for his services. 

Since then, he has been volunteering one evening a week at the center to help people with technology questions, and lead classes on common technology issues.

OUTSTANDING HUMAN SERVICES PROGRAM

Lake City Partners

For nearly 20 years, Lake City Partners has been providing shelter and supportive services in the North Seattle/King County area. 

They operate multiple programs including the GLA Day Center in Lake City, Community Outreach in North Seattle/King County, the Aurora Oaks Enhanced Shelter in Shoreline, and now the brand-new Senior Women’s Shelter in Kenmore. 

Through a coordinated approach to services LCP has been remarkably successful at moving unsheltered individuals into emergency shelter and through to permanent housing. 

Through both innovative approaches like that of the new Kenmore Senior Women’s Shelter and professional staff LCP has become a model for how service providers can successfully navigate the complex issues of homelessness to move more individuals into housing.

SELECT NOMINEES

Bothell Urban

In 2018 the Bothell United Methodist Church set out to help address the needs for affordable housing and community spaces they saw in their community. 

This has led to the creation of the Bothell Urban Project, a collaborative effort between the church, the City of Bothell, and Bridge housing to build an inclusive housing community which will include indoor community gathering areas, human services offices, food & beverage retail for job training, public meeting rooms, and affordable rental apartments.

NSD, Food and Nutrition Department ending Student Lunch Debt

Not all families in need meet the federal thresholds for their free and reduced lunch program, so the Northshore School District Food and Nutrition Department created a simple way to allow community members to support those families in need to either pay off debt or purchase meals for students in need. 

The department created an avenue for community members to donate to help eliminate student lunch debt so that families in debt can have what they owe forgiven. Student lunch debt follows them throughout their school career and can become a barrier to graduation if not paid off.

ICHS Health Education Team

ICHS’ Health Education team provides high-quality, linguistically and culturally appropriate HIV prevention services to people that need it most. 

ICHS currently serves 31,230 patients in over 70 languages, many of whom are immigrants and refugees. 

ICHS’ Health Education team launched in August 2022, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. 

The Health Education team has inspired us for their dedicated efforts in integrating HIV prevention services into primary care at ICHS clinics, uprooting stigma around HIV, and expanding access to life-saving medications for ICHS patients. 

Their efforts have been key in ICHS proudly providing linguistically and culturally appropriate HIV prevention services.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Sally Kinney

This year’s NUHSA's Human Services Lifetime Achievement Award is given to Sally Kinney for her significant commitment to advocating for more housing for the many individuals in our region who are homeless.

Her involvement in homelessness began in a very organic way when she moved to Lake City many years ago. She began by listening to those living rough in her community. These experiences moved her to action by joining others to create solutions.

Sally first joined the Interfaith Taskforce on Homelessness, later becoming part of the leadership team. In addition, she joined the Board of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness and the Steering Committee for the Ballard Taskforce on Homelessness and Hunger. 

After working with these organizations, the solution to homelessness was clear to Sally: “You solve homelessness with housing that people can afford regardless of their income.”

Sally continued her active involvement and realism when she joined the NUHSA Housing and Homelessness Committee. Always seeking opportunities for housing, she made sure the Committee stayed up to date with legislative bills and local funding and partnership opportunities. Her volunteer hours exceeded a full-time position!

You might think that Sally would slow down, but she has been persistently engaged in her pursuit of solutions to homelessness, and Sally is still hard at work to improve access to housing for all.

She’s on the Board of Camp United We Stand still listening…still advocating for access to housing for all.

Sally is also currently an active member of: Lake City Taskforce on Homelessness, Temple Beth Am Homeless to Renter Committee, Homeless Remembrance Project Committee, Transit Riders Union, Stay Housed Stay Healthy Alliance, and WHEEL Women in Black.

All these organizations support those who are homeless as they move toward housing stability. Sally personifies the art of volunteering with consistent, thoughtful and reality-based contributions to so many organizations. 

One might become discouraged with the seemingly slow progress, but not Sally. As she shared, ‘I just keep walking forward!!!”

Congratulations Sally on receiving the NUHSA's Human Services Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024! NUHSA staff, Board of Directors, members and partners are deeply grateful to Sally and the tremendous work she has done to benefit residents and communities throughout King County.

NUHSA

NUHSA’s Annual Human Services Awards have been celebrating the accomplishments of local individuals and organizations since 2008. 

NUHSA is an alliance of non-profit agencies, faith communities, city and county leadership, school districts and members of the community who advocate for a strong and accessible health and human services system in North King County, encompassing Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore, Bothell and Woodinville. 

Through partnership and collaboration, NUHSA supports providers, funders and the community to enhance existing resources and build our capacity to effectively respond to community needs.