On Thursday, April 25, the Long Beach Post hosted an event to honor young people from around the city who are doing great things to better their community and beyond. Out of hundreds of nominations from our readers, judges chose 40 winners who run the gamut from educators to artists to business owners to community activists, all of whom represent just a selection of those who are today contributing to the betterment of Long Beach.

His mission was simple: to create a citywide, relational infrastructure that offers innovative tools, systems and resources for individuals and organizations. And not just to use for themselves, but to empower people to connect around shared interests and to affect their neighborhoods in positive ways. Eric achieved this through the creation of the Catalyst Network of Communities, a nonprofit whose mission is the focus of the aforementioned. In the words of one of his nominators, “Through his efforts, what was once diffuse is now cohesive.”

For more about Catalyst, visit gocatalyst.org