Social Responsibility & Community Engagement
Positive Change
At heart, Mary is an agent for positive change. She helps charitable foundations and corporations achieve philanthropic goals by evaluating giving strategies, determining specific needs, and creating strategic contribution plans.
Combining her experience in healthcare and advocacy, Mary serves as a donor and advisor for the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. She has also served as the project director of the Women’s Sports Safety Initiative, a program that builds awareness of sports-related injuries and the unique factors that increase susceptibility to injury for girls and women.
Mary presiding over API Heritage Month
state legislature
In the state legislature, Mary authored AB 25, a bill establishing the toughest return-to-play laws in the country for student-athletes. Cosponsored by the NFL, AB 25 requires school districts to remove athletes from school-sponsored athletic activity if they have sustained a concussion or head injury. In addition, Mary authored AB 1451 and added concussion training to the first aid certification requirement for every high school coach in California. She also authored AB 509, leading to the establishment of California’s Office of Suicide Prevention, and AB 73, creating permanent funding for domestic violence prevention, intervention, and prosecution efforts in Alameda County.
mental health advocate
Before serving on the California State Legislature, Mary played a key role in the campaign to pass Proposition 63 and increase funding for mental health programs. As a result, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Mary to the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission. Mary contributed to the first White House Conference on Mental Health as a featured speaker and has served in a leadership role for the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.
Mary Hayashi with Tipper Gore, mental health advocate
work with mary
At the intersection of diversity, equality, public policy, and healthcare, Mary Hayashi is not your typical public affairs consultant. She’s a strategist and advisor, advocate, and philanthropist. She pursues meaningful reform and creates steadfast partnerships.