Volunteers Give Back

Jessie Tientcheu has spent her career empowering people.

As CEO of Opening Doors, Tientcheu is responsible for a complex organization that provides economic and social services to refugees, immigrants, human trafficking survivors and underserved Sacramento area residents.

Before becoming CEO in 2019, she volunteered for the organization’s refugee resettlement program, helping newcomers connect to their new community.

It started with quiche.

The year was 2015 and Arden-Arcade resident Sarah Thompson suffered from post-partum depression after giving birth to her daughter. An avid cook, she was chopping and baking her sorrows out when she decided to see if her kitchen skills might help someone else.

She put out a call on Facebook, offering to make a quiche for anyone who needed “an extra measure of kindness.” A connection came from a woman recently diagnosed with cancer.

Eulonda Lea never thought she’d play tag again at the age of 56, but here she is—and she’s loving it.

Lea volunteers as a court-appointed special advocate—or CASA—for the Sacramento County branch of the National CASA Association, which provides consistency and support for children in the foster care system through volunteer advocates. These advocates are community members—no law background required—trained by CASA and then appointed by a judge to advocate for a foster youth on a one-to-one basis.

Trucking and charity might seem like an unlikely pair. But for Desiree Caldwell Amaral—founder, owner and director of operations for Elite HR Logistics—helping people find lifelong careers and giving back to her community have always been inextricably linked.

For the past 20 years, Sacramento-based Elite HR Logistics has worked with numerous nonprofits, especially those focused on helping children, while simultaneously growing into one of California’s premiere employment agencies for all kinds of industries across seven states.

In 1998, after years in ad sales, Caldwell Amaral decided to switch careers and discovered an affinity for recruitment—particularly for jobs in the trucking industry.