Biographies

2009 California Peace Prize Award Honorees

Brian King

As co-founder and chief executive officer of Fresno Street Saints, Brian King has come a long way from his days as a gang member and drug dealer in Chicago. Fresno Street Saints, a faith-based organization that seeks to restore southwest Fresno as a safe and healthy community, provides support to at-risk youth and their families with gang prevention and intervention programs that offer educational enrichment, youth employment training, grief counseling and family leadership development.

King grew up on Chicago’s South Side in a neighborhood situated between two of the city’s most notorious housing projects. Living with an alcoholic and abusive father, King sought protection for his family by becoming a member of the Gangster Disciples at age eight. By the time he was 16, King was addicted to heroin, and by the age of 21, he was homeless and living on Chicago’s Skid Row. Although he was able to stop abusing drugs and alcohol, King continued his gang affiliation and started dealing drugs. About this time, King met a youth services organizer who encouraged him to share his story about the consequences of gang life and violence as a means of helping others.

King moved to Fresno in 1993 and became involved with local leaders and organizations committed to community change. King and six local pastors co-founded the Fresno Street Saints after a series of deadly incidents devastated the community of West Fresno in 1999. Fresno Street Saints works collaboratively with other community-based organizations, businesses and government agencies to bring services to youth and families in need. King lives in Fresno with his own family.

Phalen Lim

Escaping genocide, disease and starvation in Cambodia and Thailand, Phalen Lim started her new life in Santa Ana, California. Lim and her family sought help from The Cambodian Family (TCF), an agency that provides health, employment and youth services to the refugee and immigrant community of Orange County. Originally a client, she then became a volunteer and is now a youth program director for TCF, working primarily with Cambodian and Latino youth.

When Lim was four years old, Cambodia was seized by the Khmer Rouge and her family fled from the city to the countryside, where family members became separated and relatives died from disease or starvation. Worried about their safety, Lim’s family fled four years later to a refugee camp in Thailand. Eventually, Lim’s cousins sponsored her family so they could emigrate. In 1981, the family arrived to live in the Minnie Street neighborhood of Santa Ana. Lim’s first encounter with TCF was as a student who attended an after-school tutoring program. Even after Lim’s family moved from the neighborhood, she returned to volunteer at TCF and started the Cambodian Youth Pride Club, which focused on building self-esteem for Khmer girls. Lim was hired full time at TCF after she finished college.

Lim is currently a member of the Parents Conference Planning Committee for the Santa Ana Unified School District and the 40 Development Assets Group, a collaboration of youth services agencies in Orange County. She received a bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential in arts and a master’s in counseling from California State University, Fullerton. She lives with her family in Garden Grove.

Olis Simmons

Olis Simmons has devoted her career to developing systems and programs that foster community wellness. Drawing on 20 years of policy, program and research experience, Simmons helped found Youth UpRising (YU) and serves as its executive director. YU is a youth leadership development center that serves young people (ages 13 to 24) from Alameda County’s lowest-income communities. This public-private partnership offers services in health and wellness, anchored by a school-linked health clinic and integrated mental health services; art and expression, featuring dance, music and film production; and career, pipeline preparation and placement. Under Simmons’ leadership, YU has enrolled 4,800 young people over the last four years.

Most recently, Simmons facilitated systems-change work for the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, doubling its nationally acclaimed, school-based Health Center Coalition sites and reorganizing the Court Appointed Special Advocates program. Previously, Simmons was an operations associate at Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, where she developed strategies and technical assistance tools to implement new welfare-to-work and workforce development programs in diverse public systems.

Simmons has served on the boards of YU, the Center for Young Women’s Development and Generation 5. She also served on the city of Oakland’s Health & Human Services Commission. Born and raised in New York City, Simmons received a bachelor’s degree in urban legal studies from City College of New York. She now lives in Oakland.