Joseph Lara did not originally set out to build a company centered around community impact. Like many executives, he spent years focused on growth, deadlines and the normal pressures that come with trying to build something successful. But several ye...

Joseph Lara did not originally set out to build a company centered around community impact. Like many executives, he spent years focused on growth, deadlines and the normal pressures that come with trying to build something successful. But several years ago, a serious medical crisis forced him into a world few people are ever fully prepared for. Hospital stays. Drug-resistant, life-threatening infections. Months of daily infusions through a specially implanted port. Major intestinal surgery. In 2024, while recovering from severe bowel disease and multiple complications, the New Jersey entrepreneur founded LARA Marketing Group with a very different perspective on life than the one he carried before becoming sick. Because sitting inside infusion rooms each day where everyone is facing the unthinkable, erases the illusion that people’s lives are all that different from one another. He remembers seeing petrified teenagers beginning chemo for the first time and the elderly huddling under blankets to fight the chills that come with your immune system going crazy. The executive in an expensive suit carrying the same uncertainty as the patient beside him checking a GoFundMe page on a phone. Families quietly trying to stay emotionally steady while carrying fear most people around them could not see. But pain and fear do not care about income, status or background. Most profoundly to him, was how it struck him as a father. He noticed the way parents, including himself, seemed to beam with pride for a brief moment as as they talked about their children to nurses and staff, only for a hard reality to slowly creep back into their minds. Those moments left a permanent imprint on him. Joseph considers himself fortunate to have eventually recovered enough to move forward with life and business. But he also realized he no longer wanted his work to revolve only around marketing, profit margins and transactions. He wanted it connected to people. That mindset eventually led him to the Coalition of Nonprofits and to Latanya Morrison, founder of the Ahmad Butler Foundation. Founded after the loss of her grandson Ahmad “Captain Poodaman” Butler to pediatric brain cancer, the Ahmad Butler Foundation has helped thousands of families facing pediatric cancer and other life-threatening childhood illnesses through advocacy, family support and community outreach. Together, a larger idea began to take shape. Philadelphia is filled with nonprofits, healthcare organizations and community groups doing meaningful work every day. Yet many families still struggle to find help because resources often feel disconnected, overwhelming or difficult to navigate during moments of crisis. The Coalition of Nonprofits Community Health & Help Expo was created to help change that.