By Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald
Today is June 20, 2021. It is Father’s Day after a tumultuous fifteen (15) months of distancing, masking, and living through a pandemic. We are not completely through the pandemic, but it feels good to be able to attend gatherings. Last night we attended an event, at the Sojourner Truth Multicultural Art Museum in Sacramento. I attended the event with David. He was there as the Vanguard CEO to live stream the event on Juneteenth. We met an amazing group of individuals and organizations that were being honored for their work on criminal justice reform and helping exonerees. We were among great people who served years in prison for crimes they did not commit and still had the heart to establish their own non-profits or work with non-profits to help others who have been in similar situations. The love, resilience, energy, and accomplishments by those in attendance is beyond description. Our friend Jeffrey Deskovic, founder, and chair of the Deskovic Foundation for Justice and an exoneree, received an award for his work helping exonerees and working with a coalition to help pass important legislation. The most important legislation that he helped pass working with a coalition of organizations took place in NY. On Thursday, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that was overwhelmingly passed by the NY State Assembly and Senate establishing the New York State Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct.
As reported in the Vanguard yesterday, Bill Bastuk, founder, and chair of the non-traditional criminal justice coalition, It Could Happen to You, said: “This has been a long eight-year fight to hold prosecutors accountable for professional misconduct that steals liberty from the innocent, leaves the true criminal on the streets and costs municipalities millions in 
wrongful conviction settlements.”
As a Vanguard Board Member, I had the honor of interviewing Jeffrey Deskovic to learn more about the legislation and the work it took to get the legislation passed.
This last week—like every week—has been an incredibly busy week for the Vanguard. What a lot of readers do not realize is that, rain or shine, David Greenwald, as CEO and founder of the Vanguard, wakes up at 3:00 a.m. every morning to write articles for the Vanguard. He does not write them the night before, nor does he write them days before, he writes them the morning they are published. So, if he has a late-night event to attend and does not get home until 10:00 p.m., or midnight if he is attending a city council meeting that lasts late into the evening, he will get little sleep. Other times he may get little sleep because the kids want to spend time with daddy or they wake him up in the middle of the night to get cuddles because they miss him or may not feel well. In all these instances it cuts into his sleep time, but as a dedicated, loving father he does not refrain from spending time with our kids. He loves attending gymnastics meets, soccer games and tournaments, and playing outdoors with the kids at the park. He is as dedicated to the kids as he is to the Vanguard and to justice.
David is so dedicated to the Vanguard that even lack of sleep does not keep him from attending events to report and write on matters relevant to Vanguard readers. What started out as a blog has grown into an online news source that is a non-profit 501(c)(3) with a very dedicated board of directors, staff, interns, and a reading audience that many online news organizations wish they had.
The Vanguard is a community-based watchdog and news reporting organization that seeks to cover community debates and other events in a full and thorough manner. The Vanguard’s goals are to provide transparency, accountability, and fairness to local government and to the public as they write and report on the courts in the Vanguard Court Watch, all while promoting social justice and democracy and adhering to principles of accuracy and fairness in reporting.
The Vanguard has become the eyes and ears of the public and has pulled back the curtains on the courts in Yolo, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda and Berkeley, where interns report on cases and allow the public to read about what is happening in the courts. The Vanguard has received many accolades from elected officials, district attorneys, community members and activists for reporting on local government and for reporting on what takes place in court rooms throughout California and beyond. The pandemic put a strain on attending live, in-person court hearings, but the Vanguard was able to expand and thrive by having interns attend via Zoom where possible. Due to persistence and dedicated staff and interns, the Vanguard expanded and became even stronger during the pandemic..
What started as an idea fifteen (15) years ago has expanded into a non-profit organization with passion, purpose, and persistence. It has expanded because, as the CEO of the organization, David Greenwald and his dedicated board members, staff and interns have a passion for justice and transparency and will persist in bringing the most current news to readers.
That same passion David radiates for the Vanguard is the passion David radiates as a father. Our children attended the event with us tonight and talked about what they learned. They learned tonight as they learn time and time again that people of different races, ethnicities, abilities, orientations, age and background are good people. That we must work together to bring about justice for all. They learned once again that just because a person is incarcerated does not mean they are bad people. It does not mean they are guilty. And if they are guilty, people deserve a second chance. They learn forgiveness. Our kids see this in the work that David does daily with the Vanguard. They see that their father David is a caring, loving, giving human being and they desire to be like him. Our daughter made a handwritten card for David signed by both kids. She stayed up late and made it for him and it read, “Happy Father’s Day. I hope you have a great Father’s Day. You are the best dad I could ever ask for. I love you.” It was better than any store-bought card we could find because it came from the hearts of our kids.
Happy Father’s Day, David. Keep doing the great job you do for all the fathers out there who are not able to see their children on this special Father’s Day. Thank you for working towards justice for these fathers and for others. You are a special dad, and we all love you and thank you!
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A very sweet tribute. Thank you, Cecilia, and happy Father’s Day to all.
Very grateful for the both of you in our community, Cecilia and David- as individuals and as a family. Happy Father’s Day!
In regard to the photo, here’s a mystery for all of us (middle-age-and-up) with facial hair.
Why is it that beards are “grayer” than mustaches? What’s up with that?
Okay, I’ll never criticize Vanguard editing mistakes again.