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Philanthropy
2024 Charity:
Flintridge Center
Flintridge Center is a non-profit focused on breaking the cycle of poverty and violence through community planning, innovation and action. Their Apprenticeship Preparation Program (APP), for example, prepares formerly incarcerated and gang-impacted individuals for careers in union construction trades. We look forward to supporting this organization by raising money throughout the year through our various events to then donate to such a great cause. To learn more about Flintridge Center and donate directly to their efforts, visit their website: https://www.flintridge.org
2023 Charity:
Harvest Home is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that has been working to transform the lives of unhoused pregnant women since 1985. We provide housing, support and programs through two residential sites in the city of LA. Over the past 38 years, we have helped nearly 650 families flourish together.
With homelessness at a crisis level in Los Angeles, at last count, there were over 5,000 pregnant women experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County. With only a few programs providing support for pregnant women, we receive over 500 calls a year from women who are seeking housing and the opportunity to change the future for their families. We currently serve up to 70 families each year through our two-step residential program.
At Harvest Home each woman is equipped for motherhood through wrap-around programs which focus on the following: financial independence, physical health, emotional well-being, and parenting. Together with our case manager, each woman develops a customized plan to become financially independent, emotionally and relationally healthy, and mindful parent. In addition to case management, each woman actively works to increase her employability, participates in weekly therapy, attends daily classes, and shares in chores and cooking responsibilities. Women participate in the residential program until their babies are six months old when they transition into stable housing. After graduation, women continue to receive case management, coaching and resources through our Alumnae Program. For more about the impact of our programs, visit www.harvesthomela.org.
2022 Charity:
The Makers HUB is a new nonprofit created to empower people in underserved communities by bringing them Makerspaces and tool libraries so they can make, repair, build business and develop trade skills. This in turn builds community, revitalizes neighborhoods, creates new businesses in the city and forms pathways to sustainable family careers!!!
We discovered that there is a lack of access to building and crafting resources in underserved, low income neighborhoods, predominately impacting people of color. And yet these resources were available in upper middle income neighborhoods in facilities known as Makerspaces filled with craft shops, high tech shop like robotics/electronics and collaboration spaces where people work and ideate together on a variety of inventions and projects! We also discovered, that while there are about 200 Tool Lending Library’s across the nation, (Berkeley’s tool library has been around for over 40 years), there are NONE in Los Angeles! We formed our nonprofit to change this! How the heck are people to lift themselves from their bootstraps if they haven’t any boots? Access to tools and equipment should be available to everyone!
We are starting by taking a proven model - the Tool Lending Library, and we will build it up to be a full maker space. We are doing this in the underserved city of Compton – because it’s centrally located, easily accessible and a community bursting to thrive. Not only will the community be able to borrow tools, we have partnered with several local groups to support the library members in their project endeavors and how to use tools safety – Compton Veterans (Peer mentors), Compton YouthBuild (student internship program), Habitat for Humanity (to disperse emergency equipment) and Career Expansion, Inc, (access to Union Apprenticeship Readiness Programs). Together we will build a PLACE where People MAKE it!!!
Included are a couple of videos for your considerations:
Video 1 – Compton Tool Library
Video 2 - Compton Community Leaders
Homeboy Industries
What
began in 1988 as a way of improving the lives of former gang members in
East Los Angeles has evolved into the largest gang intervention, rehab
and re-entry program in the world. Each year, Homeboy Industries welcome
thousands of people through its doors seeking to transform their lives.
Whether joining our 18-month employment and re-entry program or seeking
discrete services such as tattoo removal or substance abuse resources,
their clients are embraced by a community of kinship and offered a
variety of free wraparound services to facilitate healing and growth. In
addition to serving almost 7,000 members of the immediate Los Angeles
community in 2018, Homeboy’s flagship 18-month employment and re-entry
program was offered to over 400 men and women. In 1986, when Homeboy
Industries’ founder, Gregory Boyle became pastor of Dolores Mission
Church, it was the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles. The parish
included Aliso Village and Pico Gardens, then the largest public housing
projects west of the Mississippi. They also had the highest
concentration of gang activity. That was saying something, given Los
Angeles’ reputation as the gang capital of the world. At the time, law
enforcement tactics of suppression and criminal justice policies of mass
incarceration were the prevailing means to deal with gang violence. But
where others only saw criminals, Father Greg saw people in need of
help. Today, Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention,
rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world, welcoming thousands
through our doors each year.
2nd Call
2nd
Call is a community based organization that assists in the personal
development of high risk individuals. In particular, 2nd Call ensures
that formerly incarcerated individuals transition back into society
post-release by providing opportunities for their advancement through
employment. To achieve this end, 2nd Call offers its participants 1)
life skills workshops that address issues related to anger management,
financial responsibility, and behavioral skills; and 2) assistance
securing vocational careers through unionized apprenticeships in allied
trades including electrical work, plumbing, pipefitting, painting,
construction, and manufacturing. Through its services, 2nd Call has been
able to place formerly incarcerated individuals into sustainable
careers instead of low-paying jobs--which is generally what is offered
to this population or no job at all. 2nd Call facilitates courses in the
following Los Angeles communities: South Los Angeles, Compton, Watts
and Inglewood, Pasadena and throughout Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and
Riverside Counties.
Students 4 Students
Founded in 2015 by two graduate students, S4S is thefirst and only shelter in the nation exclusively serving college students experiencing homelessness. S4S partners with Bruin Shelter, a UCLA student organization, to run the 10-bed shelter for their peers at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica. It’s open every night, providing a safe place to sleep, food to eat, a secure place for belongings, transportation stipends, and wrap-around medical and social welfare services for students ages 18-24 from all LA area colleges. The students may stay as long as needed, up to an academic year, while they work on a transition plan
School on Wheels
School on Wheels was founded in 1993 by a retired schoolteacherwho understood the importance of education to students experiencing homelessness, and recognized the terrible barriers that were preventing them from getting it. Its mission is to enhance the K-12 educational opportunities for children living in shelters, motels, group foster homes, campgrounds, cars or on the street. They are the only organization in LA dedicated exclusievely to the eductional needs of this population. In 2018 they provided more than 100,000 hours of eductional support to over 3,600 homeless children.
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2018 Charity:
New Earth
Transforming Future Leaders
New Earth provides youth with mentor-based creative arts and educational programs including poetry, music production, gardening, and fitness. New Earth currently serves 500 young people per week who are incarcerated in Los Angeles County detention facilities and placement homes and in the Orange County Juvenile Hall.
Upon release from incarceration, young people join our New Earth Arts & Leadership center in Culver City, CA where they receive career training, jobs, a fully accredited High School education program, mentorship, case management, nature expeditions, arts programming and wrap-around services that help them re-enter their communities with all the support and nurturing they need to make a successful transition.
New Earth provides mentor-based arts, educational, and vocational programs that empower juvenile justice and system involved youth ages 13-25 to transform their lives, move toward positive, healthier life choices, and realize their full potential as contributing members of our community.
USC Veterans Association
The goal of both the VRC and USCVA is to enhance the individual and academic success of veterans, active duty service members, and their family members. Operating as a collaborative effort under the auspices of the Division of Student Affairs, the Office of Academic Records, and Registrars Veterans Certification Office, the VRC provides a cooperative environment to support activities and lend a place of respite for commuting veterans. The VRC supports over 1,200 veterans and aims to launch a veteran mentorship program by the fall of 2018.
The USCVA has outlined a series of strategic initiatives to increase engagement and bolster the services provided to the veteran community. Included in this, is a push to have a larger more supportive space – either by renovating our current offices or by moving to a new location to build out for the expansion of programs – to support the growing veteran community.
Courtesy of Wigwam |