The Bianca Rae Foundation

03/19/2026

🔔Important Update about the Bianca Rae Foundation's upcoming adoption event🔔

Due to the extreme heat of 106° forecast for this weekend, we are moving this Saturday's Gardens to the Rescue adoption event indoors! The event will now take place in an empty store on El Paseo with air-conditioning. The address is below, see you all on Saturday - let's get these animals out of the shelters and into loving homes!!

🐾Saturday, March 21st
🐾10 AM to 2 PM
🐾New location: Sundance store on El Paseo, in between Trina Turk and Everything But Water

Thank you to all the animal rescues and shelters that are bringing dogs and cats looking for their new family!! Loving All Animals Org Living Free Animal Sanctuary Palm Springs Animal Shelter Riverside County Animal Services Animal Samaritans Desert Paws Desert Hot Springs Animal Shelter Catopia

02/05/2026

We are so proud to have helped create a broadcast center at another Coachella Valley middle school. Such a great partnership with Desert Sands Unified School District to create more opportunities for students! 📺🎤

Thank you to:
-Joel Aponte who shared his broadcast wisdom and hours upon hours of his time to create yet another professional grade studio for desert students
-John Grimmett for your dedication to your students to teach them this craft, Nicole Aguirre for supporting these visions, and DSUSD ELOP for believing in the importance of broadcast journalism
-Stefan Pejovic for also giving your time and expertise to bring this project to life
-Desert Sands Educational Foundation for supporting this project and all BRF's endeavors to open pathways for students
-Castro Custom Painting for once again giving your services to paint this broadcast center! It is so beautiful to see such a generous local business
-Dickey's BBQ Pit in Rancho Mirage for helping us feed all of our volunteers!
-Our BRF volunteers who always answer the call no matter what. This is yet another example of what we can do when we all work together. Thank you all for keeping BRF going!!! And thank you to our donors who allow us to make this kind of a difference.

Students at Colonel Mitchell Page Middle School in La Quinta now have access to a professional-grade broadcast studio thanks to a partnership between local foun

01/19/2026

The Bianca Rae Foundation is proud to have created another Broadcast Center in one of the Coachella Valley's schools, this time Paige Middle School!

When young people are given a microphone, a camera, and the tools to tell their own stories, they gain more than technical skills - they gain confidence, curiosity, and a voice. Journalism and media teach critical thinking, communication, empathy, and the power of asking questions. These are skills that last a lifetime, no matter what career path they choose.

A huge THANK YOU to our incredible volunteers who showed up, poured into these students, and helped make this possible. We couldn’t do this work without you. This is how we invest in the next generation: by believing in them and giving them the tools to be heard.

Thank you to:
-Joel Aponte who donated his broadcast wisdom and hours upon hours of his time to create yet another professional grade studio for desert students
-John Grimmett for your dedication to your students to teach them this craft, Nicole Aguirre for supporting these visions, and DSUSD ELOP for believing in the importance of broadcast journalism
-Stefan Pejovic for also donating your time and expertise to bring this project to life
-Desert Sands Educational Foundation for supporting this project and all BRF's endeavors to open pathways for students
-Castro Custom Painting for once again donating your services to paint this broadcast center! It is so beautiful to see such a generous local business
-Dickey's BBQ Pit in Rancho Mirage for helping us feed all of our volunteers!
-Our BRF volunteers who always answer the call no matter what. This is yet another example of what we can do when we all work together. Thank you all for keeping BRF going!!! And thank you to our donors who allow us to make this kind of a difference.

12/10/2025

Collectively, one of our favorite nights of the year at the Bianca Rae Foundation is Rae of Holiday - our annual tradition where we take families in need holiday shopping. ✨

Each year, we proudly partner with FIND Food Bank and the Desi Strong Foundation to identify families facing the most urgent challenges during the holiday season. While Christmas isn’t just about the presents, we believe it is about joy, dignity, and keeping the magic and innocence of childhood alive for as long as possible. ❤️ Seeing these kids pick out gifts with wide eyes and even wider smiles reminds us why we do this work. For a few precious hours, their worries fade, and pure holiday magic takes over.

Thank you to our partners, volunteers, and supporters who make programs like this possible: Walmart Palm Desert for their generous discount, Home Depot Rancho Mirage for donating Christmas trees to each family, Maracas Rancho Mirage for generously welcoming us for an incredible meal, and our volunteer Rosie Doane for coordinating and executing this event every year!

When our community comes together, we can make the season a little brighter for families who need it most. 🎄✨

09/04/2025

Rest in peace to our sweet mascot and the one who was the inspiration behind the Bianca Rae Foundation. We thank you all for loving him so much over the years. Let him always be a reminder of how important it is to adopt, and how rescue dogs can change our lives. 🐾❤️

06/03/2025

Never in our wildest dreams did we think the Bianca Rae Foundation's Rae of Hope Retreat for middle school students would grow to command such a venue as the Palm Springs Convention Center. But here we are - more than a decade and 6000+ students later - and we could not be more proud or excited to announce our beautiful new home!!! See you all on October 4 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. This truly is our most exciting retreat yet!! Registration opens September 1st on BiancaRaeFoundation.org.

11/18/2024

Pet photos with Santa 12/14/24!!! Book your pup's spot now.

Pictures cost $25 at the The Gardens on El Paseo, and 100% of the proceeds go to Bianca Rae Foundation!

Reserve your spot at BiancaRaeFoundation.org.

08/23/2024

A Bianca Rae Foundation passion project: the renovation of the broadcast center at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Indio 📺🎥🎤

A message from Bianca Rae:

Six months ago, I toured the broadcast center & my heart sank seeing the space, which included a news desk made out of a piece of scrap metal found on the side of a freeway. This school has long sent a news crew to "cover" my foundation's Rae of Hope Retreat, always helmed by student .now. We created a friendship over the years & I learned how much he & others rely on school resources to achieve their dreams. And so, after seeing the space, BRF sprung into action. This week we unveiled an industry-standard broadcast center for the kids, surprising them on their first day of school!!!

The village that made it happen:

•Desert Sands Educational Foundation, DSUSD & Dr. May-Vollmar for the constant support
•Joel & Cindy Aponte for spearheading this project technically, Joel leading a weeks-long design and installation project
•My college mentor who just so happened to have retired to the Coachella Valley. His creative design & volunteer support meant so much & was one of the most full circle moments of my professional life
•Castro Custom Painting for painting the entire broadcast center
•Canyon Print and Signs for donating the beautiful sign that will live on forever
•Marcus Smith of Sugarbritches Sweetwoods for remaking the anchor desk
•La Quinta High School wrestling team for transporting supplies
•Enchanted Memories Parties and Rentals for the beautiful balloon arch to help us celebrate
•Jack Srebnik/The Slice for pizza during late night volunteer sessions
•Dr. Gomez for believing in BRF
•My role model Jan Harnik for her steady support

While a generous donor allowed this project to happen, the biggest lift was the labor and manpower that it took to transform the space all summer. Thank you Anthony Martinez, Ms. Bossi, Noelle Kustas, Ryan Johnston, Kathie Butzlaff, Amy Hayes, Hailey Hayes, Lola Hayes, Nancy Pointer, Barbara Goutos, Jerry Goutos, Maria Gonzales and Joe Rungaitis

And thank you for starting my journalism career - and covering this special moment❤️

08/20/2024

An incredible story and inspirational message with Sonny Von Cleveland - who will also be speaking at this fall's Rae of Hope Retreat! More details about the symposium below:

Event link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/igniting-minds-speaking-symposium-resilience-tickets-947201363777?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

12/09/2023

Tomorrow!! 🎄🐾❤️ Give a shelter dog a home for the holidays!! Stop by the Gardens on El Paseo from 9am to 2pm to meet sweet adoptable dogs at our adoption event!

See you tomorrow!

10/13/2023

Book your pet's photo at The Gardens on El Paseo with Santa, because every fur baby needs one this holiday !!🎄🐾🎅🏻

Link to book your spot: https://www.biancaraefoundation.org/event-details/paws-n-claus-2023

08/26/2023

‼️Urgent help needed‼️

As a result of Tropical Storm Hilary pummeling the Coachella Valley, the animals at Coachella Valley Animal Campus are in desperate need of help. The shelter is surrounded by water and flooding and there's NO public access, no chance of reopening anytime soon, therefore no animals can get adopted into new homes anytime soon. The animal welfare community is coming together to try to change that: today only, from 10am to 1pm, Loving All Animals is hosting a pop-up adoption event happening at 73600 Alessandro Drive in Palm Desert with some of the shelter's animals available for adoption (seen in this video).

These animals were able to be emergency transported out of the shelter (which again has no public access due to flooding) for this adoption event. Please stop by and adopt if you can and please share this post with friends. Our valley's shelter animals need us🐾