Elizabeth Anabo, right,
with neighborhood leaders
in 1998

Stephanie Anabo

Elizabeth Anabo Memorial Fund

As she worked to help residents throughout Silicon Valley build stronger neighborhoods, California native Elizabeth Anabo always remembered the eight years her family spent in Iowa.

“We knew all our neighbors and the whole neighborhood was our playground,” recalls her sister Stephanie. “We frequently had barbecues and swim parties with neighbors and friends. It was a safe and wonderful environment for children and families.”

It was that sense of community that Elizabeth sought to recreate, even in Silicon Valley’s most poverty-stricken neighborhoods, in the four years she worked as a senior program officer at Community Foundation Silicon Valley. Elizabeth died in October 2000, and in her memory the Elizabeth Anabo Memorial Fund was created to help the neighborhoods she loved.

In 2001, the annual BRICC Award, given to neighborhoods for Building Resourceful Inspirational Creative Community, was renamed in Elizabeth’s honor. After her sister’s death, Stephanie Anabo joined the nominating committee. “ This has been a wonderful way for me to continue to bring Elizabeth's spirit of support to the communities she cared so deeply for ,” Stephanie says.

The 2004 honoree was the Gilroy Eigelberry Neighborhood Association, which is much like the neighborhoods Elizabeth worked with during her life. “I was impressed with the scope of their activism in the community,” Stephanie says. “They originally formed to address drugs and crime and evolved to offer programming for youth and elderly residents.”