More than 2,300 at-risk youth will have an enriching safe haven, inspiring learning spaces and a wireless technology center at L.A. Recreation and Park’s Lafayette Community Center in the heart of the Rampart District, thanks to a $1-million grant provided to Heart of Los Angeles by the Everychild Foundation. Four years ago, Heart of Los Angeles, forced to move its home after 13 years and with only eight months to find a home for over 1,100 at-risk youth, mounted an aggressive effort to secure private funding to sustain critical programs at the youth center. Started in Los Angeles in 1989 with just five kids and a basketball, Heart of Los Angeles has grown into a multicultural center that offers fine arts, athletic and education programs for more than 1,300 underserved youth annually throughout the city. It provides elementary, middle and high school programming for a growing population of children in urgent need of supplemental services. Each year, the Everychild Foundation invites roughly 30 to 50 nonprofit organizations to apply for its single annual grant. Everychild Foundation comprises 225 Los Angeles women, each of whom donates $5,000 in annual dues in lieu of putting on fundraising events. Founded in 2000 by Pacific Palisades resident Jackie Caster, the group has now given more than $4.5 million in grants. Prior grants have funded a mobile dental clinic, construction of 15 new libraries in public elementary schools, renovation and expansion of a child-abuse counseling center, the building of a youth learning center at a home for troubled teens exiting from the juvenile justice system, the purchase of a transitional home for emancipating foster youth and construction of a universally accessible playground. This year will be the foundation’s first $1 million gift. Funds will provide for additions and alterations to the HOLA/ Lafayette Community Center capital project, a fully equipped wireless technology learning center, expanded classroom space for job training and college preparatory classes and middle and high school enrichment programs, an office for HOLA program staff, and furnishings. ‘Heart of Los Angeles was selected for this grant because of its tremendous and proven ability to transform the lives of children living in an overcrowded, underserved, gang-ridden area,’ Caster said. ‘It provides real hope for these youth.” Back in 2001, Caster told the Palisadian-Post that the Everychild Foundation ‘focuses on projects where we can have maximum impact within a short time frame,’ and that she wanted ‘the money we raise to go where it is supposed to go, not on a lot of overhead,’ as traditionally incurred by having major fundraising banquets. Thus her group’s sole reliance on $5,000-a-year dues. Caster will be honored by the Wonder of Reading at its annual Explore-A-Story fundraiser on March 18. The organization expands and renovates public elementary school libraries, provides funds to restock libraries’ collection of books, and trains volunteers to read one-on-one with struggling readers in the new library.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
