Book of Dreams

Kindness, as simple as a cup of coffee, means the world to those who live out in the cold.

Reyna Limones, 19, said she is not having Christmas this year.

Tears, smiles and hugs. Those were the primary reactions of people who received needed items to benefit their lives as part of The Bee's 25th annual Book of Dreams.

It was snack time, and Justin Shimizu was making his wishes known.

The drill is a complex four-man choreography. The ballcarrier falls. A trailing teammate hurdles him, engaging a defender, as another gathers the ball and surges forward. All is repeated, punctuated by staccato voices as the boys' shadows grow long across the rugby pitch behind Cordova High School.

Alichia Church describes herself as a child of poverty. She and her mother moved from Oakland to Sacramento to escape domestic violence when Church was 3.

For the last six years, Michael Pacheco has been walking – or riding a bicycle when it's not in disrepair – to Pioneer Elementary School in Foothill Farms with the children he is raising as a single father.

Local nonprofit 916 Ink supports the young writers at Health Professions High School in Upper Land Park and two other sites. Program leaders are asking for help to turn aspiring writers into published authors.

Too many foster children lead the lives of transients.

In his world without words, 50-year-old Keith Cooper finds basic ways to communicate.

When a missionary told Shirley King's church congregation in 2003 that thousands of African children had lost their parents in the AIDS epidemic, King decided to help.

Like so many other Americans, the Costello family was living paycheck to paycheck. That was until, short on cash, they turned to a high-interest loan. One loan became two and next thing they knew, they were evicted, homeless and saddled with debt.

Before dawn six days each week, volunteers from Senior Gleaners head out from the nonprofit's North Sacramento warehouse in trucks assigned to collect donated food at the region's grocery stores or to take crews to harvest crops left over in fields and orchards.

The phoenix, a mythical bird, is a symbol of rebirth. At Phoenix Park in south Sacramento, the bird has a song.

It's early Monday morning and the bundled masses have gathered in foggy Friendship Park at Loaves & Fishes in Sacramento to receive a breakfast of donated pastries and coffee, and a meal ticket for lunch.

Jennifer Deshaies went to a prenatal doctor's appointment in Redding in August.

Emmanuel Alvarez was given little chance of survival at birth. One week, two. A month. Since then, he has undergone about 40 surgeries.

Her son came running into their apartment saying that men were picking on him for being in his church clothes while playing outside and were calling her names.

Choose which dreams you would like help come true.