Santa Ana High school senior Alexis Rodriguez has been awarded a $170,000 scholarship to attend Wabash College in Indiana starting this fall.

The prestigious Honor Scholarship, awarded by the university to a handful of students each year, will also help Rodriguez become the first in his family to attend college.

Rodriguez, 18, qualified for the scholarships on the strength of his grades, community service and academic achievements. The Santa Ana High senior has earned straight A's throughout high school and has excelled in Advanced Placement math courses.

The scholarship will cover tuition, room and board and other expenses throughout the next four years.

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When Bonnie Henderson decided to return to entrepreneurship after a corporate layoff in August 2008, she says the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place like answers to her prayers. Her mother was in a position to lend her some startup funding, for instance, and friends found a terrific location for her restaurant.

But the most fortuitous accident came about when her partner, Betty Miller-Henderson, stumbled across a brand new commercial kitchen in May 2009. Not only was it convenient and affordable, but it was also more than just a kitchen facility. It was Mama's Small Business Kitchen Incubator, a Pasadena (Calif.) facility that exists to educate, encourage, and nurture budding food businesses.

"We had worked out of some commercial kitchens further away, but that was a real trek. So when we heard about Mama's, it was a godsend," says Henderson, whose Bonnie B's Smokin barbeque business started catering and delivery in 2009 and—just last week—staged a grand opening at its new restaurant in Altadena, Calif.

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A quiet Westminster, California, neighborhood welcomed more than 200 visitors on January 16 for the dedication of "Gordon's House," a new family home built by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, the Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation, and Habitat for Humanity Orange County, beginning at the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

The Diaz and Martinez-Moran families received the keys to their newly built duplex homes, a joint Episcopal-Lutheran housing project.

Bishop J. Jon Bruno gave thanks for the efforts of Habitat for Humanity. He also thanked the Gordon's House donors, both of time and of financial assistance. Bruno prayed for blessings on the new homes, the families, and their new community of Westminster. Bruno said, "Allow our hands to continue to be hands in healing-reaching out touching the world."

Henry T. Nicholas III said, "I think it's important because we're building, not just homes, but communities. It's a blessing to have causes like this that do such great good in the world."

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PASADENA - Joe Colletti was worried. After three years of planning and a series of setbacks that delayed the opening by about a year, the doors finally opened in August at the $2.6 million nonprofit Mama’s Small Business Kitchen Incubator.

But almost no one was signing up to use the facility, which has state-of-the art kitchens for food-related start-up businesses, said Colletti, executive director of Episcopal Housing Alliance and Economic Development.

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