Meet Our Leaders

 Ishma Yusaf Valenti I is a multi-talented filmmaker, community leader, and advocate, born and

raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, with over 22 years of dedicated service to his city. He wears many

hats, director, nonprofit coordinator, educator, public speaker, entertainer, husband, and father all with the same goal: to uplift people, tell stories that matter, and create spaces of

opportunity.

Community Engagement & Change-Making

• Ishma is deeply committed to nonprofit work, connecting people to resources, in his

earlier life he was focused on helping co-draft legislative bills, organizing reform

policies, and acting as a bridge between local government and communities. He turned to

being more focused on people and left politics in the review mirror as he became more

focused on creating programs for the people in Lincoln & Omaha NE. Opting to work

more directly with the population instead of through the guise of political affiliations.

• As a teacher and longtime public servant, he has worked with youth through his self

created programs like the Young Business Leadership academy , the Take Pause Program,

and film camps and arts programs, helping young people discover their passions, stay

grounded in their identities, and see filmmaking and artistic expression as tools for

empowerment.

• He has been active in pushing for more infrastructure, visibility, and opportunities for the

cultural and creative sectors in Nebraska, advocating for youth retention through building

the film industry, encouraging equitable storytelling, and creating platforms for

underrepresented voices. Ishma’s social programs have also added opportunities for

thousands of community members through the events that he hosts are a catalyst to

providing community members with needed resources from reading materials to

thanksgiving meals, to Christmas gifts for children. Ishma’s impact is greatly felt in the

Nebraska community and he is continuing all of his efforts though daily work and

positive impact.

Personal Values & Impact

• Ishma is driven by the conviction that activism , relationships, community investment and

storytelling can change lives. In his entertainment realm he believes that by putting real,

diverse experiences on screen, you can shift narratives, build empathy, and motivate

action.

• As a husband and father of three, he balances creative work and public service with

personal commitment — believing that positive change begins both at home and in the

community.

• For over two decades, he has built a reputation as someone who not only dreams, but also

does: who organizes, who collaborates, who amplifies others, and who uses his talents to

foster unity, creativity, and opportunity.

 Filmmaking & Entertainment Background

• Ishma is an award-winning filmmaker whose work focuses on social justice issues,

cross-cultural storytelling, and the lives of Nebraskans. His portfolio includes

independent films, feature documentaries, short docs, music videos, and commercials. (• Notable works include On The Ridge (a feature documentary exploring life and positivity

on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation) and Voices of Innocents, along with music video

productions like Charge, Can't Be Good Be Careful, Anchors Aweigh, and others.

• His achievements in film have been recognized at regional and international festivals:

honors from Milan, Venice, Florence, and more, including awards for Best Feature

Documentary, Best Short Doc, and Outstanding Editing.

Coming Soon!

Mark Bell is a devoted husband, father, grandfather, business leader, and community advocate whose life reflects a deep commitment to family, service, generosity, and giving back.

Mark and his wife, Cheryl, have been married for 42 years and are the proud parents of three children and grandparents to six. Family remains at the center of Mark’s life, and he cherishes the time and experiences they share together. The Bell family has enjoyed membership at Hillcrest since 2004. A lifelong Nebraska Cornhusker fan, Mark holds season tickets for Husker football, basketball, and volleyball and enjoys sharing his passion for Nebraska athletics with family and friends.

Community Commitment

Mark’s commitment to community service has been equally important throughout his life. He has dedicated countless hours of his time, talents, and resources to initiatives that strengthen the Lincoln community and help those in need. Among those efforts is Random Acts of Kindness, a project he co created that brings members of the Lincoln community and the Lincoln Police Department together during the Christmas holiday season for positive interactions and unexpected gifts of kindness.

Mark has also used his leadership, relationships, and passion for helping others to assist nonprofit organizations in raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to support their missions and the people they serve. Whether through fundraising, volunteering, supporting community events, or personally contributing his own time and treasure, Mark believes strongly in showing up for good causes and using what he has been blessed with to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

Professional Career

Professionally, Mark built a distinguished career as Vice President of Matheson Linweld, where he established himself as a respected and trusted leader in the industrial gas industry. Today, he continues to share his knowledge and experience as a consultant to industrial gas companies and independent businesses. Mark has also served as an owner and investor in NAPA Auto Parts stores throughout Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota, contributing to small business growth and local economies across the region.

Hobbies & Enjoyment

Outside of his professional and community commitments, Mark enjoys traveling, hunting, Nebraska athletics, spending time with his beloved dog, Ivy, and, above all, being with his family.

Known for his generosity, wisdom, leadership, and willingness to serve, Mark has built a legacy centered on family and community. His belief in giving both his time and treasure reflects a simple but powerful commitment: when there is an opportunity to help people and make his community stronger, Mark is willing to step forward.

Dawn Valenti is a compassionate healthcare professional, devoted mother and grandmother, and community advocate whose life is a testament to perseverance, resilience, healing, and service to others. With 22 years of experience in healthcare, Dawn has dedicated her career to caring for people while developing a special ability to connect with individuals and families who may be experiencing difficult seasons in their lives.

Dawn is the loving mother of three children and proud grandmother of seven. Family has always been at the center of her life, and those closest to her know her as a source of strength, encouragement, love, and stability. Her journey to becoming that rock for her family, however, was not always an easy one.

Perseverance & Overcoming Adversity

Dawn became a mother as a teenager and learned at an early age what it meant to persevere through difficult circumstances. As a young single mother raising three biracial children while experiencing poverty, she worked tirelessly to provide for her family while navigating the realities of racism, sexism, classism, and the societal pressures that often accompany being part of an underserved community.

Rather than allowing those circumstances to define what was possible for her family, Dawn continued moving forward.

Determined to create greater stability and opportunity for herself and her children, she returned to school and pursued a career in healthcare. That decision became an important turning point in her life, allowing Dawn to build a career centered on something that had always come naturally to her: caring for others.

Dawn is also a survivor of domestic violence. Her journey through trauma and healing has given her an even deeper understanding of the courage it can take to rebuild a life. Instead of allowing painful experiences to diminish her compassion, Dawn has transformed those experiences into a greater desire to encourage, support, and uplift others.

A Career of Caring for Others

For more than two decades, Dawn has worked in healthcare, building a reputation as a compassionate and caring medical professional.

Her connection with patients goes beyond the clinical responsibilities of her work. Dawn has an amazing ability to connect with people, listen without judgment, and make others feel valued and understood.

Much of that compassion comes from experience. Dawn understands what it feels like to struggle financially, raise children while working toward a better future, experience hardship, and need someone to believe that better circumstances are possible.

Those experiences allow her to bring something deeply personal to her work. She does not simply care for people. She understands many of the challenges facing the individuals and families she serves.

Family, Motherhood & Grandmotherhood

Of all of Dawn’s accomplishments, being a mother and grandmother remains among the most important.

Raising three children as a single mother required sacrifice, determination, creativity, and tremendous perseverance. She worked to provide for her children while continuing her own education and building a professional career that could create greater stability for their future.

Today, Dawn is the proud grandmother of seven and continues to be a loving and involved presence in the lives of her children and grandchildren.

Throughout the different seasons of her family’s life, Dawn has remained a source of strength. She has been the person family members can turn to for encouragement, guidance, support, and unconditional love.

Community Commitment & Giving Back

Dawn’s personal experiences have also created a genuine passion for serving people who are working toward better lives for themselves and their families.

She understands the experiences of underserved populations because she has faced many of those struggles herself. That understanding gives Dawn a unique ability to meet people with empathy rather than judgment and encouragement rather than assumptions.

She regularly gives her time and talents to community events, charitable causes, fundraisers, and initiatives focused on helping others. She is particularly passionate about encouraging young people and helping them understand that their present circumstances do not have to determine their future.

Dawn’s story allows her to tell others something especially meaningful: difficult beginnings do not have to dictate how the story ends.

A Life of Resilience, Compassion & Service

Dawn’s life represents the transformation of struggle into strength and pain into purpose.

She has experienced poverty, single motherhood, discrimination, domestic violence, and the challenges of creating a better future while raising a family. Yet through those experiences, she continued to grow, pursue education, build a career in healthcare, raise her children, support her family, and find ways to serve others.

Today, Dawn is a beloved healthcare professional, mother, grandmother, volunteer, and community servant who uses both her professional experience and personal journey to encourage those around her.

Outside of healthcare, family, and community service, Dawn enjoys gardening and following college football. She especially treasures time with her children and grandchildren.

After spending decades as a rock for her family, Dawn continues to expand that same spirit of love and support into her community. Her greatest strength may be her ability to look at someone going through a difficult season and see more than their current circumstances. She sees their potential.

Her life is a reminder that perseverance can create opportunity, healing can create purpose, and some of the people best equipped to lift others are those who remember what it felt like to need a helping hand themselves.

Cheryl Bell is a retired educator, devoted wife, mother and grandmother whose life has been shaped by a commitment to education, family, service, and helping young people reach their potential. For 35 years, Cheryl dedicated her professional life to Nebraska Catholic schools, where she taught middle school aged students and became a trusted teacher, mentor, coach, and leader. Her impact, however, extends far beyond the classroom. Throughout her life, Cheryl has consistently found ways to give her time to her students, her family, and her community.

Cheryl and her husband, Mark, have been married for 42 years and are the proud parents of three children and grandparents to six. Family has always been at the center of Cheryl’s life, and one of the roles she treasures most is being a grandmother. She has devoted countless hours to being present and involved in the lives of her grandchildren, including helping care for them so that her daughter and son in law could continue pursuing their professional careers.

For Cheryl, being a grandmother has never simply meant watching from the sidelines. It has meant being available, dependable, encouraging, and actively involved. Her willingness to give her time has allowed the next generation of her family to pursue their goals while knowing their children were surrounded by the love and support of family.

A Life In Education

Education was more than a profession for Cheryl. It was a calling that she dedicated 35 years of her life to.

Cheryl spent her entire teaching career serving students in Nebraska Catholic schools, primarily teaching mathematics to middle school aged students. During more than three decades in the classroom, she had the opportunity to influence the lives of generations of young people during some of their most important developmental years.

As a mathematics teacher, Cheryl understood that her responsibility went beyond teaching students how to solve equations or understand numbers. She worked to help young people develop confidence, discipline, perseverance, responsibility, and the belief that difficult problems could be solved when they were willing to work through them.

Over the course of 35 years, Cheryl taught and mentored countless students, leaving an impact that extended well beyond academics.

Athletics & Leadership

Long before Cheryl became a teacher and coach, athletics played an important role in developing her own character and leadership.

Cheryl was a women’s athlete during both high school and college, competing during a time when opportunities for female athletes were continuing to grow. Her experiences as a student athlete helped develop the discipline, competitiveness, teamwork, resilience, and commitment that she would later carry into her career as an educator.

Those lessons followed her into the classroom and into her work teaching and mentoring students. Cheryl understood firsthand that athletics can teach lessons that extend far beyond winning and losing. Being part of a team teaches young people how to work with others, accept responsibility, overcome challenges, and continue moving forward when things do not go according to plan.

Her background as both an athlete and educator gave Cheryl a unique ability to understand students from multiple perspectives and helped shape the teacher, mentor, and leader she became.

Community Commitment

Cheryl’s spirit of service has continued well beyond her professional career.

Over the years, she has volunteered her time to support Christmas holiday giveaway programs and other seasonal community events designed to bring joy, assistance, and resources to families and children. Whether helping prepare for an event, working behind the scenes, assisting during the event itself, or simply being present wherever another set of hands was needed, Cheryl has consistently been willing to give her time.

Her approach to community service reflects the same values that guided her teaching career. She believes that making a difference does not always require recognition or a title. Sometimes it simply requires being willing to show up, help, and care about the people around you.

After spending 35 years serving young people professionally, Cheryl continues to demonstrate that same commitment through volunteerism, family involvement, and support of causes that strengthen the community.

Family, Travel & Enjoyment

Retirement has given Cheryl the opportunity to enjoy another important chapter of life.

She and Mark enjoy traveling together throughout the United States as well as internationally, experiencing different places, cultures, communities, and traditions. Their travels have allowed them to create new memories together while enjoying the rewards of the many years they dedicated to their careers and family.

When she is closer to home, Cheryl enjoys golfing, playing mahjong, crafting, spending time with friends, and, most importantly, being with her children and grandchildren.

Her creative interests, love of travel, competitive athletic background, and dedication to family reflect the many different sides of Cheryl’s personality. She can enjoy an afternoon on the golf course, an evening playing mahjong, time creating something through crafting, an adventure in another part of the world, or simply a day surrounded by her grandchildren.

A Legacy of Education, Family & Service

Cheryl’s story is ultimately one of investment in people.

For 35 years, she invested in young people as a teacher, mentor, coach, and school leader. As a mother and grandmother, she has invested countless hours supporting her own family and helping the next generation pursue their dreams. As a volunteer, she has given her time to community events and initiatives that provide joy and support to others.

Her life demonstrates the tremendous impact that can be made through consistency, compassion, education, and simply being willing to give your time.

From the classroom and athletic court to community events, family gatherings, and time spent caring for her grandchildren, Cheryl has spent decades helping others move forward. Her legacy is reflected not only in the students she taught, but also in the family she has supported, the community she continues to serve, and the many lives she has touched along the way.

Darwin Archie-Pettis is a mission driven higher education and workforce development leader, educator, mentor, coach, consultant, and community advocate who has dedicated much of his professional and personal life to creating opportunities for young people and strengthening the Lincoln community.

With experience spanning higher education, TRIO programs, career services, STEM initiatives, workforce development, entrepreneurial consulting, athletics, mentorship, and military service, Darwin brings a unique perspective to community leadership. Throughout each chapter of his career, one principle has remained consistent: success becomes more meaningful when it is used to create opportunities for others.

Darwin holds a Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and has built his career around helping students and families recognize and pursue opportunities through education, careers, entrepreneurship, and personal development.

Education & Professional Leadership

Darwin’s professional career has centered on helping people recognize their potential and connecting them with the resources and relationships necessary to pursue it. Through his work in higher education and workforce development, he has supported students as they navigate important decisions surrounding college, careers, and their futures.

His experience with TRIO programs, career services, and STEM initiatives has allowed him to work directly with young people from different backgrounds while helping make educational and professional opportunities more accessible.

His entrepreneurial consulting experience has further expanded his ability to connect ideas with action. Two strengths have come to define his leadership: creating meaningful connections and multiplying ideas into action. For Darwin, relationships are about connecting people to opportunities, resources, knowledge, mentors, and one another.

Youth Mentorship & Community Commitment

Some of Darwin’s most meaningful work has taken place directly alongside young people.

Throughout the years, he has dedicated countless hours to coaching, mentoring, tutoring, volunteering, and supporting youth throughout the Lincoln community. His involvement extends beyond any single organization, program, classroom, or athletic season. Giving back has become an important part of who he is.

Darwin understands that young people need more than programs. They need consistent adults who are willing to show up, listen, encourage them, challenge them, and help them recognize possibilities they may not yet see for themselves.

Whether assisting a student academically, providing career guidance, coaching an athlete, connecting a young person with resources, or simply being available as a trusted mentor, Darwin consistently finds ways to invest in the next generation.

Athletics, Coaching, & Leadership

As a Junior Olympic track coach, Darwin has used athletics as another powerful avenue for mentorship and youth development.

While competition and athletic achievement are important, his approach to coaching extends beyond performance. Darwin uses athletics to teach discipline, perseverance, preparation, teamwork, accountability, confidence, and resilience.

He takes pride in helping young athletes understand that their identity and potential extend far beyond sports. For Darwin, successful coaching is not simply about developing better athletes. It is about developing stronger young people who are prepared to succeed in life.

Military Service

Darwin’s commitment to service also includes eight years in the United States Army Reserve, where he served as a Behavioral Health Specialist.

His military experience strengthened his understanding of leadership, discipline, responsibility, empathy, and service to others. Those experiences continue to influence how he approaches his work with students, families, athletes, colleagues, and community members.

Culture, Representation & Giving Back

Darwin takes tremendous pride in his culture and understands the importance of representation, particularly for young people who benefit from seeing leaders, educators, coaches, mentors, and professionals who believe in their abilities and understand their experiences.

His cultural pride is demonstrated through action. Throughout Lincoln, Darwin has worked to be a positive and consistent presence for youth and families through volunteering, coaching, mentoring, tutoring, and supporting programs that create opportunities for young people.

He wants youth to understand the value of knowing where they come from while believing there should be no limit on where they can go. His work reflects a commitment to honoring culture, strengthening community, and preparing another generation of leaders who understand the importance of eventually reaching back and helping someone else.

A Legacy of Service, Mentorship & Opportunity

Darwin Archie Pettis represents a style of leadership rooted in relationships, action, service, and a genuine belief in people.

From higher education and workforce development to Junior Olympic athletics, tutoring, mentorship, consulting, military service, and community volunteerism, the different chapters of his life share a common purpose: helping people recognize opportunity and giving them the support necessary to pursue it.

Whether he is mentoring a student, tutoring a young person, coaching an athlete, developing a partnership, connecting someone with an opportunity, or volunteering his time in the Lincoln community, Darwin continues to live by the principles that have guided his career: create meaningful connections, turn ideas into action, and leave people and communities stronger than you found them.

Bio Coming Soon.