Blog

t’s easy to see why collective impact —the commitment of a group of important cross-sector actors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem—caught fire in 2010. During an economic downturn, when few new resources were available, a voice said there was a way to do more with what we already had. The concept offered hope for achieving results at the scale we desired, even though we were feeling constrained. And thank goodness. Collective impact both validated work that had been...

Father Joe’s Village’s bold announcement that it plans to add 2,000 housing units over the next five years is also a bold declaration: San Diego’s homelessness problem is a housing problem. To address that, Father Joe’s wants to invest $531 million in public and private dollars in permanent housing for people who are now homeless. They plan to renovate more than a dozen motels at locations to be determined, build hundreds of new units and transform some of those they’ve already got into...

Weekly Wraparound meetings: Mondays 6pm-7:30pm ( in cafeteria ) Wednesdays 7pm-8:30pm Spiritual Support ( Sanctuary ) Sundays 10am-11:30am Spiritual Support ( Sanctuary ) New Harvest Church 3060 54th St. San Diego, Ca. 92105 For registration and confirmation contact: jesussandoval@fredfinch.org (619)792-9180

Giving back to others is always good, but when you can give back to both animals and children, that is even better! Local humanitarian, Agnes Barrelet, is doing just that by heading up two non-profits, Hands United for Children and Children’s Nature Retreat . The Children’s Nature Retreat in Alpine is a haven for all kinds of animals, including two zebras, four Friesian horses, African cows, mules, donkeys, rabbits, mini horses, goats and pigs, ostriches, and desert tortoises, etc. There are...

San Diego Youth Development Office (YDO) is an intermediary organization driving systems and policy changes that improve health, education and employment outcomes for children and young adults ages 0–24 in San Diego County. YDO provides expertise, data, technical assistance, services and products that support positive youth development by focusing primarily on prevention. YDO addresses that inequity by recognizing the pivotal activities, situations and barriers young people face and...

The San Diego Coffee Training Institute (SDCTI) seeks to empower and elevate vulnerable populations to self sufficiency through the advancement of coffee. By offering certified training programs in specialty coffee, at-risk populations simultaneously acquire marketable skills in a highly-regarded trade that elevate the quality standards and understanding of the industry overall, while also acquiring more confidence, higher self-esteem, and general professional workforce skills that translate...

Oceanside is leading the way in San Diego County with a pilot program to send home kitchen scraps such as spoiled fruit and leftover pasta to the compost pile. About 1,600 households are participating in a two-month trial that, if successful, will be expanded permanently to about 40,000 Oceanside homes in a year or two, city officials said. The project is driven by state laws requiring cities and counties to reduce the flow of organic waste into landfills, a major source of the air-polluting...

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017, the first job fair in a San Diego County jail was held for participants of East Mesa Reentry Facility ’s (EMRF) culinary training program and Reentry Works San Diego job center . Fifty-six inmates who are within a year of release attended the job fair, holding portfolios containing their résumés and pointers from the San Diego Second Chance Program , the operator of the job center that organized the job fair along with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department .

A recent poverty report found that one-third of working families in San Diego, California, more than 1 million individuals, live with incomes too low to cover their basic needs. These stark figures are reflected in the city’s skyrocketing homeless population, which has risen nationally from the twelfth largest in 2007 to third in 2016, according to US Department of Housing and Urban Development. A report published in January by the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI), Making Ends Meet,...

In early January, California released the updated version of its pollution-screening tool, CalEnviroScreen. The new data indicate that Barrio Logan, Logan Heights and National City remain among the top five to ten percent of communities in the state most impacted by pollution. Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), the only environmental justice organization in the San Diego region, says the most up-to-date information spotlights the neighborhoods that have long lived with an unfair burden of...

Four grants worth over $32,000 were awarded from Hand to Hand to San Diego County women’s nonprofit organizations. Hand to Hand, a giving circle at Coastal Community Foundation, directs resources to programs that empower change and self-sufficiency in women. This giving circle is composed of 60 women who contribute funds and then choose worthy recipients. The Foundation builds philanthropy in San Diego north coastal communities by offering donors a wide variety of options for giving -...

The prescription drug abuse problem in this country has reached such epidemic portions, treatment centers around the nation, including in San Diego, now have entire facilities or programs geared specifically toward opioids. OxyContin started to flood the market in 2000, since then 3,492 San Diegans have died of opioids, according to the most recent report from the San Diego County Medical Examiner. The McAlister Institute in El Cajon is one of the largest substance abuse treatment centers in...