Local Community Heroes was started by Mr. Hemant Desai to recongnize students and teachers in the community. Mr. Desai felt television, newspaper and radio were only interested in trendy and shocking news that would get people to watch their coverage.

Mr. Desai asked many publications if they would be interested in covering the story of students and teachers in our community to which they all initially agreed. When the time came to create the publication, they all decided not to go forward with the idea saying that no one wants to see children on the front covers but they rather see a celebrity in revealing outfits. Mr. Desai did not give in and worked for over three and a half years on trying to convince publications. Without any success he decided to start the publication on his own.

Mr. Desai had no idea where to begin for his publication. He drafted out his ideas on paper in which he then talked to others about having it bilingual in both Spanish and English. As you may have known the Spanish speaking population in Silicon Valley is very large.

Luckily, Mr. Desai knew of Joel Cruz from his ITEX, Silicon Valley barter exchange. He called Joel one day and asked him about starting a publication along with his idea. Joel had experience in publications along with a graphic designer who would be able to help put it all together. Joel was moved by Mr. Desai’s vision and the next day they came up with the idea to combine Heroes with Hemant’s local community publication to that of Local Community Heroes-Heroes de la Communidad.

The next step to getting the publication started was to find these heroes. Mr. Desai decided to talk to the staff at Independence High School where they instructed him to get permission from the East Side Union High School District. There he met Linda M. Orenlas, Director of Marketing at the district office who was thrilled to help Mr. Desai’s vision come to life. The publication was officially started on April 16th, 2016.