Adrianne Hillman & Erin Garner Ford, 2026 Leadership Award Recipients

Описание: Adrianne Hillman was raised on her family’s dairy farm in Tipton and has always called the Central Valley home. While pursuing a career as a life coach, she felt a deep call to serve people experiencing homelessness who were being denied basic dignity. Having experienced ostracism in her own life, Hillman recognized the same patterns of exclusion in how unhoused neighbors were treated. In response, she founded Salt + Light in 2019, launching housing and outreach programs grounded in “radical hospitality” and unconditional commitment to belonging. Erin Garner-Ford joined in 2020 as a consultant to help build the organization’s early infrastructure. She brought fifteen years of nonprofit leadership experience and a commitment to investing in her community shaped by watching her own family lead and serve in the Central Valley. Drawn by Hillman’s vision and the organization’s growing impact, Garner-Ford came on as Chief Strategy Officer in 2023, playing a key role in scaling the organization’s operations.

Through their work at Salt + Light, Hillman and Garner-Ford are reimagining how rural communities respond to homelessness. The organization has helped more than 250 people move from homelessness into stable housing—approximately 20% of Tulare County’s unhoused population. In 2024, Salt + Light opened its Neighborhood Village, California’s first-of-its-kind rural permanent supportive housing community, featuring 53 thoughtfully designed homes in a walkable, connected neighborhood. By actively involving the broader community and prioritizing dignity at every turn, the organization reduces stigma and ensures residents are seen and welcomed as neighbors. In a region where social challenges have traditionally fallen to law enforcement, Hillman and Garner-Ford are advancing an alternative model—one that pairs housing with comprehensive support services to better meet community needs and foster long-term stability.