Grant Partner Spotlight

Our 32 current and past grant partners are focused on helping women and girls of San Diego achieve their full potential. 

As a Women Give San Diego member, you are encouraged to help our partners with their mission through our Community Engagement committee.  To get involved, please contact our co-chairs at communityengagement@womengivesd.org.

February 2021: Home Start

Home Start Since 1972, Home Start has been on the front lines in the battle to prevent child abuse and neglect here in San Diego.

The agency serves as a community “safety net,” providing evidence-based services, support, and healing during times of great challenge. Their caring staff offer the guiding hand and encouragement families need to regain hope and move toward a healthy and promising future for themselves and their children.
In any given year, the families Home Start serves are on the brink of crisis. With the added stressors and devastating economic impacts caused by the pandemic, their services have never before been so crucially needed to serve our community.
In 2020, thanks to support from Women Give San Diego and additional generous partners, their 7 core program areas provided the following:

  • Rental assistance: Home Start provided 216 households with rental assistance, keeping these families sheltered and off the streets.
  • Shelter: They provided over 100 individuals experiencing homelessness with case management, food, stabilization resources, and hotel vouchers.
  • Utility assistance: Over 40 residents of El Cajon at risk of homelessness received utility and rental assistance.
  • Food distribution: They are providing 1000 meals a week to homeless neighbors living on the streets and connected over 300 families to CalFresh for food assistance.
  • Transportation & Emergency support: Home Start staff assisted 116 individuals with transportation needs and 683 with emergency supports, including food and clothing.
  • Drive-through events: Staff provided 153 families with care packages that included grocery gift cards, hygiene kits, and children’s books.
  • Family Support:  120 households were assisted with Domestic Violence services, and 52 children experiencing complex trauma received healing therapy.
  • Home Visitation:  They provided 4,930 hours of case management for 150 parents in the child welfare system and led 12 parent education classes (with 67 parents graduating!). Plus, 112 families were served through their First Steps family support program.

Lastly, the following story perhaps best demonstrates the impact our support of Home Start has had.

"My name is Kelly and I am a mother of two beautiful little girls named Ana who is 6 and Ally who is almost 2. They are the light of my life and my motivation to continue to better myself in every way possible. I came to Home Start after being without a stable home for over a year after getting out of a very toxic and abusive relationship with the father of my youngest daughter. I knew that was not the example I wanted to set for my girls, so we left for good. Fortunately, I have my Mom who is my main support, but I still felt like my girls needed a place of their own, but I could not afford to provide that for them. Which is when Linda from Home Start contacted me, it was such a blessing! She herself has been a great support, along with the whole program. They have provided so much for my children and I, that I could not imagine how it could be paid back. Now I can say that my girls and I have a stable and safe place where they can be without any worries and for that I will be forever grateful."

Through our partnership with Home Start, together we will help local families like Kelly’s get through this pandemic and ensure they have hope for a brighter future.

January 2021: International Rescue Committee in San Diego 

 International Rescue Committee in San Diego

Organization Overview and Mission
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people whose lives and livelihoods have been shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and regain control of their futures. The IRC in San Diego was established in 1975 and supports refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, and the broader San Diego community through a comprehensive set of programs designed to help families become more economically stable and move forward toward their goals. IRC programs and services include:

  • Resettlement & Placement
  • Economic Empowerment Services
  • Immigration
  • Youth Programs

Program Update
During the COVID19 pandemic, the IRC has been able to continue to offer all of our programs remotely, while also working to address barriers such as language and access to education and technology faced by many in the refugee and immigrant community, as well as address new needs such as assistance accessing unemployment and other financial relief for individuals, and grant and loan application support for small businesses.

If you’d like to read more about the IRC in San Diego’s recent work, please visit our 2020 Impact Snapshot or follow us on Facebook or Twitter @IRCSanDiego

Ways You Can Help
WGSD is encouraging our members to support IRC this month, especially since IRC may become even more needed due to the potential legislative changes to restore asylum and refugee programs.

November 2020: Just in Time for Forster Youth

JUST IN TIME
As the holidays approach, we all think about spending time with our family and friends. And the COVID virus has made each of us even more aware of how important our family and friends are to us.  Can we even begin to imagine what life would be like without their support? 
Just in Time for Foster Youth (JIT) has become that family and friend to many youth aging out of the foster care system.  Many of these emancipated women and men have no resources to support them as they approach the next phase of their life.  Especially with the added assault of the COVID virus making their journey even more difficult.

Just in Time initially provides the critical financial support to overcome life’s emergency situations.  Like the basics: clothing, rent assistance, groceries, gas cards and vehicle repair assistance.  Once young women and men are in their safe, stable and supportive place to live, JIT provides them with numerous programs to build their future:

  • Rise to Resilience: Builds resilience and teaches healthy habits to address the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences and toxic stress.
  • Bridges to Success: Engages and empowers young men in a supportive brotherhood of male leaders and like-minded peers to build professional network and personal skills.
  • Career Horizons: Engages and empowers young women with a network of female professionals and coaches.  These contacts help them to build a sense of self-worth and personal skills.
  • College Bound/Learning to Succeed/Master Your Dream: Offer the tools, encouragement, and community needed to succeed in college and beyond.
  • Financial Fitness 101, 102 & 103: FF101 teaches transition age foster youth basic financial knowledge and helps them establish healthy money habits. FF102 introduces youth to important financial concepts and helps them each establish a rainy-day fund. FF103 teaches transition age foster youth more advanced financial concepts and helps them diversify their investments.
  • Pathways to Financial Power/NEXTjobs: Promotes work readiness and strategies that lead to meaningful work and smart money management.

In this unexpected climate the help from Women Give San Diego has added to JIT’s ability to further these programs and continue to be the friend and family to many young men and women.

October 2020: San Diego Center for Children

It’s hard to imagine that after 6 months and so many challenges and sacrifices related to the Pandemic, we would be here today, trying to cope with a surge in cases and the ongoing changes brought about by COVID-19.

During these extraordinary times, the San Diego Center for Children has continued to monitor the situation in our community very closely to ensure that we can quickly adjust our safety protocols and contingency plans based on CDC and County Public Health guidelines. When the stay-at-home order was first issued in March, the Center was quick to implement emergency plans and able to transition to continue to provide critical mental health services to youth and families in San Diego with no disruption.

  • Today, most of the Center’s community-based therapeutic services continue to be provided remotely via telehealth.  As part of the re-integration plans once the stay-at-home order was lifted, staff started to provide in-person-services to those clients needing it most by meeting safely and securely in open spaces with appropriate PPE. 
  • The nonpublic K-12 school, The Academy, located on the main campus of the Center, transitioned to remote instruction and distance learning, and is now working to re-open safely within the next month under the state’s guidelines.
  • Given the current need for “remote intensive therapeutic services” for youth with more significant behavioral health challenges, the Center’s  Wraparound services have been expanded to provide virtual Intensive Family Services to more families in need.
  • Despite being in a pandemic, we have been able to launch an in-person Intensive Outpatient Program on our main campus.
  • The Center’s residential treatment program serving children ages 6-18 has remained open throughout this time.   We continue to adapt our emergency protocols to provide in-person care safely to the youth in our community with the greatest behavioral health risks.

Additionally, since the pandemic began, the San Diego Center for Children has seen an increase of over 300% in the number of foster youth referred and admitted to our Short-term Residential Treatment Program.  Our team is now responsible not only for providing ongoing therapeutic care after-school hours and on weekends, but must also support the virtual education of foster youth receiving treatment and living at our residential facility.

It is only through partnership with extraordinary organizations, like Women Give San Diego, that the Center can continue to offer these critical programs and services to our most vulnerable population; thank you for your generous support!  Building on our tradition of excellence in superior care, the Center is one of the few agencies in California to have all its therapeutic programs nationally accredited by The Joint Commission and its non-public school accredited by WASC.  Today, we operate 8 programs sites across the county and provide individualized therapeutic, educational, foster care and transition age services to over 1,000 people every day.  

For more information and ways to #HelpfromHome, please our website at centerforchildren.org

August 2020: The Center

Large group photo in front of The Center building

Organization Overview and Mission
Established in 1972 as a community-based nonprofit organization, The San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center (The Center) is one of the most vibrant and largest LGBT community centers in the nation. The Center’s mission is to enhance and sustain the health & well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, non-binary, immigrant, and HIV communities to the betterment of our entire San Diego region.
 
The Center promotes LGBT health/wellness and human rights by providing targeted programs and services to the full diversity of the San Diego LGBT community. Last year, The Center provided more than 86,000 direct service visits to over 26,000 San Diego community members and, through its events, activities, and advocacy, touched the lives of thousands more.
 
Program Update
The San Diego LGBT Community Center received funding from Women Give San Diego in 2019 that supports a wide array of vital services provided through The Center’s youth services programming. These programs address the multiple ways in which LGBTQ youth, including transgender and non-binary youth, as well as youth living with HIV, remain a population vulnerable to homelessness, lack access to health care, and experience violence in school and at home. The Center is committed to the wellness and empowerment of LGBT youth and making sure the next generation has the resources and support they need to be healthy and thrive. Our clients benefit from services ranging from emergency shelter, health care enrollment, resume assistance, educational access assistance, to permanent supportive housing that fully supports them in attaining self-sufficiency and success.
 
With this funding, The Center has exceeded all objectives and outcomes that were in our grant proposal. We have served over 700 youth, provided over 975 counseling sessions, provided over 6,800 service visits to youth, served over 125 youth with housing navigation and prevention/diversion services, and housed six youth in host homes. Of the youth in host homes, all but one exited to permanent housing, and the remaining youth is still in placement. 96% of the residents at the Sunburst Youth Housing Project remained in permanent housing during the grant period. 60% of youth who have completed six or more counseling sessions reported fewer psychological symptoms at the termination of treatment.
 
The Center is very grateful for the support of Women Give San Diego! This funding has truly made a difference in the lives of San Diego’s most vulnerable youth.
 
Volunteering
 Unfortunately, during the pandemic, The Center has suspended its robust volunteer program. During typical times, The Center has volunteer opportunities every day, including front desk and cyber Center volunteers, signature events such as AIDS Walk San Diego and Dine Out for Life, and a monthly food bank that requires assistance from about 20 volunteers each month. Once it becomes safe, The Center will reactivate the volunteer program. Information about the status of the volunteer program can be found on The Center’s website or in our e-newsletter. If you have questions, you can reach out to volunteer@thecentersd.org.

June 2020: Reflecting on Pride Month During COVID-19

By Sarafina Scapicchio, Membership Co-Chair

June is Pride month, but for certain, this Pride month has been different from all others. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on hundreds of Pride organizations worldwide with countless marches and events cancelled or postponed. San Diego’s own pride celebration has gone virtual to help keep community members safe, but still connected. However, as we watched the national conversation about racism and anti-black violence emerge across our computer screens, televisions, and dinner tables, to many of us in the LGBTQ community it seemed that the spirit of Pride month would prevail after all.

You see, the annual Pride celebration, originated on June 28, 1969 when patrons of the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City, decided to fight back against discriminatory police raids and violence. The revolt was reportedly led by two transgender women of color and a lesbian. This riot was commemorated by activists one year later with a march that has evolved into our modern-day Pride parade. So you can imagine on June 15, 2020 when over 15,000 people clad all in white outside of the Brooklyn Museum in Prospect Heights gathered to chant “Trans Black Lives Matter!” many LGBTQ community members declared that our movement had finally returned to its revolutionary roots. The LGBTQ movement would move ahead this year without any floats, speeches, or rainbows – just folks coming together in the name of justice was all that was needed. It made me incredibly grateful to be a part of such a resilient community.

Similarly, I am grateful to the community of Women Give San Diego and to be welcomed by its leadership as an out queer woman.  Our 150+ members have a variety of backgrounds, faiths, races, and sexual orientations but we have one goal in common – to promote the economic self-sufficiency of women and girls in San Diego. To that end, we have granted $810,000 over the last 10 years to 30 very diverse charitable organizations. In fact, in 2019, the San Diego LGBTQ Community Center was one of our grantees. This is significant to me personally because I understand that for every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations each year, only 28 cents goes toward supporting LGBTQ issues directly. I am incredibly proud to be part of a membership organization that is actively seeking diversity in their grantee pool and helping to correct funding disparities like these. Therefore, I wish to say to you before Pride month ends, “Happy Pride” to you all! I hope we can celebrate the progress we made this year in person safely sometime soon! 

With Pride,

Sarafina

Director of Philanthropy
San Diego Pride

May 2020: Virtual Volunteer Opportunities with WGSD's 2020 Grant Partners

  1. Virtual tutors are needed to support refugee youth. Email VolunteerSD@Rescue.org to learn more about this and other upcoming virtual volunteer opportunities including how to purchase cloth face masks from IRC client tailors/seamstresses, order take-out or delivery from a refugee or immigrant owned local restaurant, and more.
  2. Our Refugee Film Festival has gone online. Sign up to stream award- winning films and all proceeds will help ensure we can continue to provide critical services during the COVID-19 outbreak and help families recover in the months ahead.
  3. Provide Lyft/Uber credits or online gift certificates to help vulnerable families access food and other basic needs. Contact Laurel.Dalsted@Rescue.org for more information.

  1. Create and decorate inspiring greeting cards to our moms. Email Mark Lagace at mlagace@home-start.org for more information.
  2. Purchase candles from Home Start Bright Futures Candles here.
  3. Donate here to help Home Start respond to COVID-19, and continue to manage our housing programs to keep our clients sheltered, distribute critical resources like food and hygiene items, and implement safe therapy practices like telemedicine and phone technologies.  

  1. Help us show much-deserved appreciation to our amazing residential teams at the Center by making personalized notes or providing PPE, meals and snacks to our essential workers.
  2. Donate arts and crafts supplies for our youth in residential treatment at the Center. 
  3. Provide a food basket (or grocery bag) of nonperishable food items along with a grocery store gift card and you will help alleviate daily stressors for the families we serve, and create joy for them as they spend time sharing meals together.
  4. Find out more about these and other opportunities to #helpfromhome here

  1. Volunteer for College Bound Service (details are still being worked out).
  2. Virtual Power Lunches: let us know if your company is interested in hosting one and has any opportunities for young women to engage.
  3. Contact Jennifer Telitz at Jennifer@jitfosteryouth.org to discuss these and additional opportunities.
  4. Start a peer-to-peer fundraiser of your own!

April 2020: Free to Thrive

Free to Thrive (“FTT”) empowers survivors of human trafficking to be free from exploitation and thrive by providing them with legal services and connections to other supportive services.

The FTT Legal Clinic (“Clinic”) is the first of its kind in San Diego County to provide mobile, holistic and trauma-informed legal services to survivors of human trafficking in their recovery and transition from victims to survivors, and ultimately to thriving members of our San Diego community. Through FTT’s innovative programs, FTT serves some of the most vulnerable members of our community by providing direct legal services, connections to pro bono attorneys, and referrals to a variety of supportive services that cultivate healing and overall well- being, empowerment, financial independence and entrepreneurship. The Clinic is an innovative collaboration with law firms, law schools, social service providers, law enforcement, and government agencies. 

The WGSD grant helps support FTT’s Las Colinas Clinic which is held at the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility (San Diego women’s jail) in Santee. This funding is used to help homeless, incarcerated human trafficking survivors plan for and find housing upon release from custody.

FTT is still fully operating during the COVID-19 crisis. The organization’s primary focus is helping assist clients who are not in jail with their basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, personal safety) and their legal needs (restraining orders, emergency chi

ld custody issues).

For FTT’s clients in jail, the organization is working closely with reentry specialists to serve clients transitioning out of jail during this crisis and has had two clients successfully transition from jail/prison to housing programs since the start of COVID-19. FTT also received a referral from the public defender's office after they identified an individual as medically fragile and in need of housing upon release. FTT has kept the public defender's office up-to-date on the housing options FTT has found so they can advocate for their client’s release. For clients who do not have release dates in the near future, FTT has provided them with general information regarding COVID-19, FTT’s inability to do in-person screenings at this time, an

d court updates.

There are many ways for Women Give San Diego members to get involved with FTT to make a life- changing impact in a survivor’s life. In light of the COVID crisis, FTT needs gift cards for client’s basic needs (gas grocery stores, Target, Walmart).

Additional ways to help include:

  • Providing in-kind services that will meet the emergency needs of FTT’s most vulnerable client population. 
  • Providing virtual mentorship to survivors.
  • Contacting FTT if you have, or know of, employment opportunities for survivors.
  • Once in-person gathering resume post- COVID-19, members are welcome to volunteer at events, workshops, and other survivor or community programs, and can also host a fundraising event.
FTT encourages any member who is interested in getting involved to reach out directly to FTT for additional ways to support survivors, especially during this difficult economic time. You can contact FTT through their website at: www.freetothrive.org/contact. You can also sign up to volunteer with FTT here: www.freetothrive.org/volunteer 

NAWIC Summer Camp

Our 2017 grantee National Association of Women In Construction is providing training for young women through volunteers in the industry teaching basic (apprentice) and advanced (journeywoman) skills every summer.  This is their tenth summer camp.  Why?  Construction is a growth industry, and there is a great need for skilled workers.  The average annual pay is $62,300, 2% more than all the private sectors reporting.

Our grant helps pay for all the construction supplies, breakfast and lunch, sunscreen and whatever it takes.  Supplies cost about $100 per camper.  Each camper gets her own personalized tool bag, with seven tools, a hard hat, and if she returns for more camps she gets another tool each year.  CAT San Diego, heavy equipment company and supporter, provided a replacement fork lift on the spot and also provides the barbecue for the graduation ceremony.  There are many companies, trade unions, and organizations that donate time and treasure to invest in these young women.

They build sheds for the school to use for equipment and a solar greenhouse used by the biology department for growing experiments.  The greenhouse is now also housing a tank for underwater robotics!  It is self-sufficient providing all power and water needed for the projects.  They have made tables and benches of concrete and planters to use on campus.

The camp volunteers say it is gratifying to watch the confidence build in the campers year after year.  About 60% return to camp for several years.  One student was a “naturally gifted carpenter”.  She went into the Seabees, Coast Guard, to work in the service most known for their building skills.

Watching these bright energetic women learn new skills is inspiring.  Our grant is doing great work!