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After seeing a pair of swastikas etched at Pavion Park last month – one on a tree, another on a wall – Jenna Gerstner was unsure what to tell her two sons. “I contemplated how to tell my children about racism,” she said as she shared her story in front of hundreds gathered at the park Monday night. She reached out to Rabbi Rachel Kort at Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo, who coordinated with leaders of the Orange County Islamic Foundation mosque and Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church...

The MIX is meant to create a safe place for families that live in overcrowded and risky neighborhoods, where it’s unsafe to go out at night. It gives them a place to relax, let the children run around in the open air, connect with one another and improve their lives. It’s all free, with classes taught by volunteers who include church congregants and members of the wider community. They range from white-collar professionals to someone like Hilda Colin, a mom who heard about The MIX from...

Two weeks after Santa Ana became the first Orange County municipality to adopt a resolution declaring itself a sanctuary for all residents regardless of immigration status, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted in favor of a corresponding ordinance adding teeth to that commitment. While a resolution is a statement of policy, an ordinance is a specific law that upon violation could be punishable by either a fine or imprisonment, according to Jorge Garcia, senior management assistant...

Orange County will join eight other counties in a restaurant meal food assistance program that allows CalFresh food assistance participants to purchase prepared food from local restaurants. The Orange County Board of Supervisors has authorized a program to allow those who are elderly, disabled and homeless who participate in the state’s food-assistance program to purchase prepared meals at participating restaurants. Upon implementation, Orange County will join Alameda, Los Angeles,...

Orange County hopes to get homeless residents into housing – and help them stay there. Riverside County plans to connect former inmates with health clinics and social services. Placer County is opening a respite center where homeless patients can go after they leave the hospital. Those are just some of the pilot projects in a $3 billion experimental effort officials hope will improve the health of California’s most vulnerable populations. The effort is a recognition that improving people’s...

Nearly 19,000 homeless, elderly and disabled Orange County residents are one step closer to being able to use their food stamp benefits to purchase hot meals at local restaurants. County supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to implement a state program allowing those populations to swipe their CalFresh EBT cards to buy meals at participating eateries - a change that would help increase food access to thousands of people who have nowhere to store groceries or are unable to cook for...

In September, the Children’s Hospital of Orange County broke ground on its Pediatric Mental Health Facility, which will house Orange County’s first inpatient program that can accommodate children under the age of 12. It will also allow CHOC to open intensive outpatient programs and expand mental health services for children with chronic illnesses. I was proud to be a part of the ground-breaking ceremony and see so many members of our community come together for this common goal. When CHOC...

Santa Ana officials have called the city a sanctuary for all residents – regardless of immigration status – but ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, they adopted a resolution that makes it official. Council members voted 5-0 Tuesday in favor of adopting a sanctuary resolution that requires the city to strengthen various policies that already exist to further protect residents. Those policies include prohibiting the use of city resources for immigration enforcement, reaffirming commitment to...

Manuel Dircio, 20, a business administration student at Fullerton College boasts a 4.0 GPA. He is also a recovering alcoholic with a history of arrest and incarceration in juvenile detention — not quite what you’d expect from a seemingly model college student with a stellar grade point. Dircio credits the Youthful Offender Wraparound program (YOW), which he says “helped [him] grow successfully.” It’s what’s known as a full-service partnership (FSP) in Orange County, California, that uses a...

A new report from Children Now details wide disparities in children’s well-being across California’s 58 counties. The 2016–2017 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being looks at a series of indicators organized around the three domains of child welfare and economic well-being; health; and education. The report provides a comparison over time for each of 28 indicators, as well as a breakdown by ethnicity on each data point for every county in the state. Children Now, an advocacy...

I am excited to announce that ACEs Connection Network has partnered with the producers of the film, Portraits of Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion. Their Pain . to host a FREE SCREENING of the film for our members. If you have been t hinking of hosting a screening of CAREgivers in your community or are interested in learning more about secondary traumatic stress and what to do about it, join our ACEs Connection Network for a FREE screening of this film and a virtual chat with the...

Kenneth Morris Jr. was busy running a successful marketing and entertainment company when he happened to see a magazine article about modern-day slavery that led him to make a major life change. Morris is not only the great-great-great-grandson of abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass but also the great-great grandson of early civil rights pioneer Booker T. Washington . Both men were born into slavery. It was Morris’ maternal grandmother, Nettie Hancock Washington , the granddaughter of...