Phyllis DiNardi
Supporting foster care children and families
Phyllis founded We Are Loved to bring comfort, dignity, and hope to children in foster care across New Jersey. Based on her own experience as a foster parent to 54 children, We Are Loved provides essential items, emotional encouragement, and community-driven resources during times of uncertainty and stress in young people’s lives.
Danielle Gletow
Bringing joy and hope to youth facing foster care
Based on her experience as a foster parent, Danielle created this online wish-granting platform that enables donors to gift children and young adults in the foster care system and impacted by crisis with everyday necessities, special items, and experiences to show them that they matter. More than 350,000 wishes have been granted – more than $30 million to change the lives of individuals impacted by foster care.
Clyde Briggs
Creating a positive alternative to incarceration
In 1992, Clyde was the only person to earn release from a life sentence in New Jersey through good behavior. His experience in incarceration motivated him to start the Lifers Group and its Scared Straight program for troubled juveniles, to educate and deter youth from criminal activities involving drugs, gangs, and violence. The organization set the stage for the formation of a hip-hop group of the same name out of Rahway State Prison (now East Jersey State Prison).
Susan Nobleman
A pioneer in drug and alcohol prevention programs for youth
Sue launched Teen Institute of the Garden State and The Willow Tree to empower thousands of young people to lead substance abuse prevention initiatives at high schools and middle schools, and to learn how to cope and be resilient through life’s difficulties. The programs, now part of the Lindsey Meyer Teen Institute, were established out of her firsthand experience as a teenager of losing her mother to alcohol addiction. Sue passed away in early 2025.
