NUHSA honors local leaders at Annual Human Services Awards

Photo by Claudia Meadows

Recipients and nominees were honored at NUHSA's 2024 Human Services Awards celebration on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at Kenmore City Hall (18120 68th Ave NE).

• Human Services Champion: Guru Dorje
• Youth Human Services Leadership: Taanvi Arekapudi
• Outstanding Human Services Program: Lake City Partners
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Sally Kinney

Human Services Champion

Guru Dorje

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.

Nominees for Human Services champion
L-R Juliana Pooley, Silje Sodal, Susie Moore, NUHSA presenter, Maura Query
Photo by Claudia Meadows

Select Nominees:

• Susie Moore - Lead Family Advocate for the Shoreline School District.
• Silje Sodal - Executive Director of Third Place Commons and former Executive Director of NUHSA.
• Maura Query - City of Kenmore employee, and founder of Thoughtful Citizens Facebook group. Also the founder of the Kenmore Children’s Business Fair.
• Juliana Pooley - Leader of Kenmore for People Oriented Places (KPOP) and serves on Kenmore’s DEI advisory committee. Active volunteer with Undaunted Women.

Youth Human Services Leadership

Taanvi Arekapudi
Photo by Claudia Meadows

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. 

Select Nominees:

• Shlok Rathi - provides technology assistance to seniors at the Northshore Senior Center.

Outstanding Human Services Program

William Towey, (center) Executive Director Lake City Partners
Photo by Claudia Meadows

Lake City Partners

For nearly 20 years, Lake City Partners have 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:

Representatives from L-R Bothell Urban Methodist Church; ICHS; Northshore School District
Photo by Claudia Meadows

Bothell Urban Methodist Church

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.

Northshore School District 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

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’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.