Welcome to the PSR/Sacramento Website
PSR/Sacramento is a non-profit, educational organization of health
care professionals and other concerned citizens committed to the following goals:
- Eliminating nuclear weapons and promoting alternatives to war and militarism as a means of resolving international conflict and preventing terrorism (see the Nuclear Weapons, War, and Militarism page for information about our “1,000 Call Campaign” to help rid the world of nuclear weapons)
- Protecting the environment and reducing man-made contributions to global warming.
- Promoting social justice, both locally and globally.
- Curbing the epidemic of interpersonal violence, including gun violence, that afflicts our society (please see the Gun Violence Prevention page)
- Ensuring universal access to affordable medical care
Make Your Reservations to Attend Our 2023 Annual Dinner Featuring a Keynote Address by Dr. Michael North of Scotland
See the Upcoming Events page for details
PSR/Sacramento Congratulates the Winners of our 2023 High School Scholarship Essay Contest
From left to right, Rocio Perez, Ethan Machado, William Souza, Madison McGuire, Ellie Winger, Ethan Orr, Nysa Sarkari, Naudiah Monet Calacal, Eva Pullen, Matthew Ferrara, and Anna Standeven
The prompt for our 2023, chosen by a vote of our members, was the following quotation from the renowned primatologist, environmentalist, and animal rights activist, Dr. Jane Goodall:
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
The 10 finalists presented their essays orally at a luncheon at the Hilton Arden West in Sacramento on Sunday, April 30. At the luncheon, which was attended by a large audience of PSR supporters, a distinguished panel of judges from the community choose the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. The winners of this year’s contest are listed below. Click on students’ names to read their winning essays.
First Place Winner ($3,000 Award)
attending Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove
Second Place Winner ($2,500 Award)
attending Jesuit High School in Carmichael
Third Place Winner ($2,000 Award)
attending Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Oakmont High School in Roseville
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Sierra High School in Manteca
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Rosemont High School in Sacramento
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Forest Charter School in Truckee
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Saint Francis High School in Sacramento
$1,000 Scholarship Winner
attending Union Mine High School in El Dorado
$250 Scholarship Winner
attending Cordova School in Rancho Cordova
This is the 19th consecutive year that we’ve hosted the PSR/Sacramento High School Scholarship Essay Contest, and with this year’s awards, thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we have given over $240,000 in scholarship money to deserving high school students. The prompts for past essay contests are appended below, and the winning essays from past years are posted on the Scholarship Essay Contest page of the this website. We believe that the essay contest is an important way of fostering and rewarding critical thinking on the important issues of our time among high school age youth. We hope that you agree and that you’ll consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the essay contest fund to help ensure that we’re able to continue to offer the contest in future years. The contest is run entirely with volunteer labor, and 100% of donations to the essay contest fund go directly to student awards.
Quotations Used As Prompts in Past PSR/Sacramento Essay Contests
2005: “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.” John F. Kennedy
2006: “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” Martin Luther King
2007: “We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace.” Michael Franti
2008: “War is a racket with the profits reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” Maj. General Smedley Butler
2009: “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” Albert Einstein
2010: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Native American Proverb
2011: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” President Dwight Eisenhower
2012: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
2013: “Firearm regulations, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, are the most effective way to reduce firearm related injuries.” American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury and Poison Prevention, April 2000
2014: “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela
2015: “The world is over-armed, and peace is under-funded.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
2016: “Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.” The 14th Dalai Lama
2017: “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2018: “The connection between women’s human rights, gender equality, socioeconomic development, and peace is increasingly apparent.” Mahnaz Afkhami
2019: “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” President Barack Obama
2020: Peace is not only the absence of war. As long as there is poverty, racism, discrimination, and exclusion, we’ll be hard-pressed to achieve a world of peace. Rigoberta Menchu Tum
2021: “The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?” Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
2022: “Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.” William Greider
