Located south of Fresno, just before the Highway 198 interchange, Goshen is a small, one-exit stop before Visalia and Hanford. to Visalia or Hanford. On the northeast side of town, where apartments and tract homes meet a warehouse district, sits a new gated community that is a bit different from its neighbors. The small neighborhood looks like many new developments with wide streets, a small park and a large community center.
At a glance, the main thing that sets this neighborhood apart is the homes are all single-wide one- or two-bedroom modular homes, a bit smaller than your typical gated community. However, the unique part of this community is that the nearly 80 people who live in the 53 units were previously unhoused, and the community center, Unity Hall, provides services aimed to support their neighbors as they rebuild their lives.
The neighborhood, Salt + Light, is the brainchild of Fresno State alumna Adrianne Hillman, who earned her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies in 2000. Hillman found her calling after she was asked to serve on a nonprofit board to replace a family friend who had passed away.
“I was shocked at what I was seeing with the way that the system was operating. I really thought something could be done better,” Hillman said. “We were doing a lot of transactional giving and doing, but it’s not helping.”
What was missing, she said, was the relationship aspect.
Hillman was inspired to create a new type of organization to help people in the community who are unhoused. In October 2019, she held the “In My Backyard” launch party – a clever spin on the common “not in my backyard” objections heard around homelessness efforts.
“I literally had it in my backyard. I had 475 people there and launched this vision. No money, no volunteers, no employees, just a dream,” Hillman said.
Early challenges
After that initial launch party, unforeseen challenges began to mount. A week later, Hillman’s father suffered a heart attack while having a routine angiogram and had to have emergency open-heart surgery. At the same time, both of her grandparents were also in the hospital, suffering from different ailments. Days later, her grandmother passed away.
Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the world shut down. Traditional fundraising efforts were not possible, nor were face-to-face meetings with donors. Instead, Hillman took the time to build Salt + Light’s business infrastructure. She hired help to create the employee handbook and develop human resources policies and procedures.
The plan was to build a “forged family” community with the primary goal to help individuals return to their true selves through belonging. To accomplish this, Hillman put forward Salt + Light’s six foundational pillars: mental health services, physical health, job skills, nutrition, social engagement and drug and alcohol counseling. She said the organization is different because it focuses on a relational model rather than a cheaper, easier-to-manage transactional model.
During the pandemic, the Kings/Tulare Homeless Alliance reached out to Salt + Light for help feeding people in the streets. The alliance provided a small grant, and Hillman purchased a used food truck, refurbished it, and began providing meals for folks who are unhoused.
“That food truck was not part of my original vision, but it actually was a game-changer and taught us what we needed to know about what people really needed on the streets. It also showed me the power of relationships and consistency,” Hillman said.
The food truck now serves over 2,700 meals every month and delivers socks, winter gear, hygiene products and tents to those in need. The truck has provided the added benefit of serving as a fundraiser at events, such as the annual Tulare World Ag Expo, which incidentally sits on one of Hillman’s ancestral farmland plots.
Building a community
In 2022, Salt + Light partnered with Self-Help Enterprises to break ground on the village in Goshen. In September 2024, Salt + Light moved in, officially bringing the vision to fruition.
It takes many community relationships to provide the level of service Salt + Light dispenses. One notable relationship is with the Fresno State Mobile Health Unit that provides health care services to the community nearly every Thursday.
“The Fresno State [Mobile Health Unit] has really cared for our neighbors in a really important way,” Hillman said. “They’ve made relationships with them, and I think the students have really seen success by being able to serve people.”
Dr. Lynn Jakobs, director of the Mobile Health Unit program, said the experience allows students to work in the nurse-led mobile clinic and with a faculty instructor.
“You’re in the field, so you don’t often have the same resources that you might have in a large brick-and-mortar clinic. This brings creativity and resourcefulness to the table,” Jakobs said. “The students get to connect risk factors and socioeconomic determinants of health to their outcomes; the chronic diseases or problems that the patients present with.”
Salt + Light staff say the neighbors value the consistent visits, which make the residents feel important, valued and respected.
“That’s not something many of them have ever felt with other physicians or in traditional medical settings. It’s made a huge difference,” said Jason Quijada, director of the Neighbor Care program at Salt + Light.
As far as results, Hillman said no residents have returned to homelessness on the streets after over a year of operation.
“We have wraparound care, but I think that the lack of whole person care is what the problem is with the revolving door of affordable housing and homelessness,” Hillman said. “This extra investment is actually what’s keeping people housed.”
Looking forward, Hillman continues to have big plans for Salt + Light, including an expansion of the neighborhood village with more housing units and an art and entrepreneurial hub to give neighbors more creative and vocational outlets, such as a luxury bath and candle line and a farmers market, all designed to provide jobs and entrepreneurial training to the neighbors.
Hillman is also launching an educational department to teach other nonprofit leaders how to start their own villages and food distribution centers.
She recently brought that message to the TEDx Visalia stage.
Building Human Projects, Not Housing Projects
A lifelong resident of Tulare County, Hillman grew up on a dairy farm in Tipton. With roots that reach back over a century, her father’s family immigrated from the Azores to start a new life and establish her family in the Valley’s agricultural community.
While at Tulare Union High School, Hillman engaged in leadership and was involved in extracurricular activities, including serving on the Associated Student Body and cheerleading. During her senior year, she won the Miss Tulare pageant, which earned her a small scholarship. The next year, she won Miss Tulare County and went on to compete for Miss California.
After graduating from high school, she attended the College of the Sequoias in Visalia before transferring to Fresno State. Initially majoring in broadcast journalism, she later changed her major to liberal studies, intending to become a teacher.
“I was scared I wouldn’t make it. Someone told me that being a broadcast journalist would mean terrible hours and no life. So I was scared, and I chose to change my major to potentially become a teacher,” said Hillman.
“My time at Fresno State was really a happy time for me,” said Hillman, a first-generation college graduate.
Hillman said she worked two jobs while taking 22 units per semester to work her way through college, and she is proud to say she paid for it.
“It was that part of the journey that prepared me for this. It takes a significant amount of grit.”
After graduating, she worked as an investment broker at Edward Jones for two years before she married, had children and stopped working to raise her three boys.
In 2012, Hillman’s life was uprooted by a painful divorce. The experience, she said, made her feel like she was pushed to the margins and cut off from her community. It also changed her life trajectory for the better and set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the founding of Salt + Light.
In 2014, she married Scott Hillman, then chairman at J.D. Heiskell & Company, a family-run feed company currently ranked No. 125 on Forbes’ America’s Top Private Companies list.
After attending a year-long cohort in the Martha Beck Institute life coach training program, Hillman started her own business. She trademarked the brand “Do It Afraid,” which she describes as teaching women to utilize fear as a raw material for courage.
In February 2025, Hillman achieved her latest educational milestone by completing the UCLA Anderson School of Management executive program.
While Hillman’s journey has been unique, it’s clear that each of her educational and life experiences has converged to bring her to the particular role she occupies today. Growing up on a family farm instilled in her an entrepreneurial spirit.
“Family business is in my blood. So when I got here, I had to learn how to navigate the nonprofit space and the differences between that and for-profit business.”
Her early experience in cheerleading, beauty pageants and as a journalism major has given her confidence in being in the spotlight, she said. Her liberal studies degree and life coach training taught her to become a teacher.
“I thought, ‘now I’m going to waste all that life coaching work I did.’ Little did I know it’s what I use probably every single day. Both leading my team, leading neighbors, conflict resolution, conflict management – from employees to community members – that life coaching training has come in very handy,” Hillman said.
Working two jobs to put herself through college gave her grit. Raising her children and subsequent divorce brought her empathy, especially for those who have been ostracized from their community.
“Belonging is my heartbreak. So lack of belonging is something that really bothers me. So groups who are extricated to the margins, I have a heart, a soft spot for that,” Hillman said. “I love watching people return to themselves.”
Her work building Salt + Light has received significant attention in her community and beyond. She was named the 2022 Humanitarian of the Year by the Central California Lions Club, and earned the 2022 Ruby Award from Soroptimist International of Visalia, the 2023 Remarkable Women recognition by KSEE24 and the 2023 Anthem Awards for Nonprofit Leader of the Year. Most recently, she received the 2026 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, which she shares with her fellow Salt + Light board member Erin Garner-Ford.
But Hillman said seeing her name on the trophy for the 2024-25 Outstanding Woman of the Year by the City of Tulare, alongside her two grandmothers, Dolly Faria (2005) and Mary Downes (1975), and her mother-in-law, Patricia Hillman (1968), was one award that holds personal significance for her.
“These are both women who were serious contributors to the wellness and betterment of the City of Tulare. I’m really proud of that,” Hillmansaid.
Beyond Salt + Light, Hillman continues her community work. At Fresno State, she is currently a member of the Portuguese Leadership Council and a supporter of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute.
“Fresno State is a gem in the Central Valley,” Hillman said. “I love Fresno State and that Portuguese Leadership Council has been a great connector for me back to the university and to its leadership and faculty…and of course I’m super proud of my Portuguese heritage.”
Hillman plans to continue using her voice to speak for those on the margins and to innovate the way society addresses the humanitarian crisis of homelessness. She is currently developing a podcast and writing a book based on her experiences at Salt + Light. But for now, her focus remains on the small neighborhood in Goshen, where nearly 80 people who once had no place to call home are rebuilding their lives — one relationship at a time.
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(Melissa Tav contributed to this story.)
