Imagine a child feeling neglected, invisible, ignored. For kids who live in their family car, have been bounced from foster home to foster home, or don’t know where or when they’ll eat next, this IS their reality. Every day we are creating critical positive experiences and social support to make youth feel whole and help carry them through their trauma by providing each child with their own custom, homemade birthday cake. What we deliver is so much more than just a cake. Each cake is a reminder that they matter, that there is a community behind them.

Thanks to our local volunteer bakers, we’ve delivered 865 custom cakes in Napa, partnering with twelve social service agencies. Nationally, 29 chapters have delivered more than 84,000 cakes to date. There are untold numbers of youth who are in foster care, unhoused, survivors of domestic violence and/ or trafficking who still need our support. We can deliver more smiles, partner with additional 501c3 Napa agencies, recruit and celebrate volunteers, and reach as many youth as possible with additional financial support and volunteers.

Since 1996, CASA has helped thousands of abused and neglected children in foster care. We provide educational, emotional, physical and early intervention services for children of all ages. These children are victims of physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse and severe neglect. By state statute there is only one CASA program in each county.

CASA representatives meet with children weekly, forming a vital relationship and assessing needs. During the time a child is in the foster care system, they will have, on average, 5 different social workers and 3 foster care placements. CASA provides the only consistent adult that follows the child throughout the time they are in foster care. We build trusting relationships with the children, provide them with essential and non-essential items, and help them cope with adversity and develop resilience.

Having a long-term, stable and positive relationship with a trained adult is the single most important factor influencing positive outcomes for children in foster care. We provide educational, emotional, physical and early intervention services for children of all ages.

There are approx. 6,000 kids ages 0 – 5 in Napa County, and we aim to serve them and the families and caregivers who support them. From American Canyon to Calistoga, Pope Valley to Carneros and everywhere in between, our geographic boundary is the County line, and all our services are for Napa County residents.

We tailor our programming to the unique needs of our area. We advocate for the needs of young children and their families, champion programs offering prenatal – age 5 support, and partner with other organizations to expand the reach of two great programs into our county. The Imagination Library provides a free book in the mail each month for kids 0 – 5 and Napa County Safe Seats Program provides free car seats for Napa County residents with young kids.

At a time of rising costs and in a county like ours with one of the highest income inequalities in California, our work focuses on equity and helping families and kids get off to a great start!

Since 2001, LAPS has created thousands of smiles by bringing high-quality and enriching in-person Animal-Assisted Interactions to vulnerable populations in Napa County. We serve children living with emotional or learning difficulties, teens and young adults dealing with life’s stresses, seniors in Assisted-Living and Memory Care, and patients in skilled nursing facilities. Volunteers and their pets perform behavior assessments and learn therapy skills during a multi-week training course for working with children, teens and fragile elderly.

LAPS volunteers and family help teams practice their skills in several diverse roleplay scenarios. New teams are tested to the highest standards every two years and mentored throughout their careers. Expanding on our unsurpassed training program, LAPS will soon offer an Introduction to Therapy Skills class as a first step for handlers exploring whether they and their pets might be successful as a Therapy Team.

LAPS welcomes dogs, cats, bunnies, mini-horses and mini-donkeys as therapy pets who work alongside their human partners to share unconditional love with clients of all ages.

Making a difference in the lives of clients of all ages.

Molly’s Angels provides free services to Napa County seniors, including transportation, routine check-ins, advocacy, and emergency delivery.

Our Napa Long Term Care Ombudsman Program supports and advocates for the needs of over 2,000 residents in long term care and skilled nursing facilities.

In 2024, our 114 caring volunteers provided 4,660 rides to non-driving seniors. We offer individual transportation to medical appointments, and when needed, provide emergency grocery and prescription delivery to the housebound. The Angels Express van offers scheduled rides from individual homes and senior housing to the grocery store, farmers market, library, shopping centers, and senior center to create connection and combat social isolation.

We perform weekly wellness calls and early intervention screenings for depression and loneliness, making referrals as necessary. We partner with local schools to have students create handmade birthday cards. In 2024, we made 5,743 calls and sent 1,100 birthday cards. Ensuring the elderly in our community feel seen and cared for is often lifesaving work. We build intergenerational friendships and bolster the sense of community for our clients and for our volunteers.

We advance neuroscientific research and provide training that becomes improved healthcare for the underserved. We do this by developing medical technologies that address urgent gaps in care, while mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Since 2017, we’ve provided hands-on internships to over 40 high school students, primarily from Napa Valley. Interns work alongside our scientists, physicians, and engineers on real-world research in neuroscience, AI, and biomedical engineering. They gain first-hand experience in designing experiments, building prototypes, and analyzing data.

Our most ambitious project to date, developed with help from former interns, is the Virtual Neurologist, an AI tool designed to diagnose strokes in ambulances and rural hospitals where specialists are scarce. One of our high school interns, who contributed to the Virtual Neurologist project, was accepted into the BSMD program at Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

We also offer the NeuroSpring Scholarship, awarded to promising interns continuing their education in science and medicine. Two students have received this honor, and our very first intern recently completed a Master’s in Neuroscience and is now applying to MD-PhD programs.

OYB is a unique opportunity for Napa County youth. We run a coed basketball program available to all middle and high school students in the Napa Valley. Every person who signs up is assigned to a team regardless of skill or ability to pay registration fees. There are no try-outs. We encourage and develop players of all skill sets and experience levels. We give scholarships to those who need them. We build community and promote all the health and social benefits that come with participation in sport, through basketball.

We work to keep every aspect of our program free or low-cost. The planning, coaching, scorekeeping, gym setup and cleanup, and all administrative tasks are performed by volunteers. We charge no admission fees to families or community members to watch games.

Your donation provides player scholarships and covers operating costs of this beloved community program, that has inspired players to become coaches, and decades of continued sponsorship from our community.

We provide a safe, engaging, and enriching environment for all UpValley older adults. Through regular exercise classes, we promote health and safety. Collaboration with local service providers makes Rianda House a trusted and convenient resource center. Language and memory classes stimulate the mind and foster social connections.

The fun doesn’t stop there—we offer a wide variety of programs designed to enhance the social, emotional, and physical well-being of everyone we serve. Last year 2,000 classes were attended and 15,348 people visited.

Rianda House is a place that fosters lifelong learning and interaction. And everything is free because of donors like you!

We support the health, well-being, and independence of older adults and those who are disabled by operating four programs:

Yvonne’s Front Porch Donation Center, named after our founder, Yvonne Baginski, is where donations of new and gently used medical supplies and durable medical equipment are accepted and provided at no cost to those in need.

Our Stop Falls Program provides home safety assessments by a licensed occupational therapist. We also arrange for a contractor to make home modifications as well as assistive device installations at no charge to Napa County residents.

The Transitional Fall Prevention Program utilizes items received from our donation center. We work with the client or the client’s caregiver support system to analyze and assess the living environment for elevated safety.

The Declutter Program helps Napa County residents create safe and healthy living spaces by removing excess clutter that affects their quality of life. Serving those at risk of homelessness, with limited mobility or disabling conditions, we pick up reusable items, coordinate haul-aways, deep clean homes, and connect clients to valuable resources.