Dear Friends of the Leo Buscaglia Foundation:
Join us in celebrating 398 (and growing!) funded grants powered by your loyal support since 1984 to small non-profit organizations, mainly in Southern California by the Leo Buscaglia Foundation. Please, consider positively impacting Leo’s legacy by making a gift to the Foundation to enable further essential contributions to disadvantaged persons.
Each small grant recipient organization integrates caring, empathy and the spirit of giving back with meaningful mentoring, as they impart knowledge and useful skill-sets to hundreds of needy participants annually. The primary quest of the creative professional employees and dedicated staff volunteers of each organization is to be positive change-makers to the underprivileged they serve.
As many of you are aware, Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia founded and personally endowed the Leo Buscaglia Foundation to foster the spirit of “paying it forward”/”giving back” to provide funding and support for quality impactful programs in the fields of education, social services and the arts guided by Community non-profit organizations.
Leo, very intentionally, created the Foundation as a public non-profit charity since his dream was to share his mission of “giving back” with the involvement of other like-minded individuals. We, the volunteer Board of Directors of the Buscaglia Foundation are honored, deeply appreciative and elated by your remarkable generosity. We are filled with gratitude for your kind consideration, if possible, by a donation at this time.
Some of us have experienced the blessing of interacting with Leo personally – the blissful happiness of sharing a meal, the jubilation of a 70th birthday party, the lasting exhilaration of his exuberant ability to mesmerize at his public lectures, his classes and his appearances on PBS. Others are fortunate to also embrace Leo’s spirit of giving back and his genuine belief in the value of love and compassion by immersing themselves in his 14 books, his previous articles in the L.A. Times and meditating from his inspiring and uplifting quotes.
Leo’s lifetime philosophy of “paying it forward” resonates with even more relevance to our lives in navigating these challenging times. Leo’s loving message continues to infuse us with resilience, fortitude and a new sense of our need to “reach out” with love to one another.
Please cherish your family and friends! Look for the 50th Anniversary Edition of Leo’s first book, “Love” and the 40th Anniversary Edition of “The Fall of Freddie The Leaf” in 2022. We will commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Leo’s birth in 2024 as a way to remember his legacy of love and light.
With Warmest Wishes for a Special, Loving Holiday Season,
Dagmar V. Halamka
President, Leo Buscaglia Foundation
2021 Grant Recipients
Fit 4 the Cause (F4TC) – Encino, CA. Received a grant for rent/occupancy/utilities, fitness instructor salaries, program staffing and home studio tech including lights, Zoom and cameras for remote classes. The funds will help F4TC to serve 750 individuals in 2021 free of charge through weekly fitness classes. Fit 4 The Cause provides diverse exercise and nutrition education programs for low-income communities, many of them with special needs. They serve thousands of beneficiaries including vulnerable children, at-risk teens and fragile seniors in Ventura, Simi Valley, Conejo Valley and the San Fernando Valley. They continued to keep their communities together during the pandemic, offering virtual classes daily. They hope to transition back to on-site classes as the pandemic lessens.
Fringe Benefits Theater – Los Angeles, CA. Received a grant to support youth leadership of four of their five CT4CT programs. These include Videos for Social Justice Workshops, serving approximately 720 people, a 5-week Internship Training Program, serving approximately 20 people, the Arts for Civic Engagement Showcase, serving approximately 250 people and the Think Outside the Box Symposium, serving approximately 1000 people. Fringe Benefits collaborates with schools and community groups using theatre to promote constructive dialogue and action about diversity and discrimination issues.
Jubilee Consortium – Los Angeles, CA. Received a grant to support their Jubilee Jump youth program. The Jubilee Jump program provides jump rope classes, nutritional training, mentoring and leadership development to low-income children in and around Los Angeles. Currently 268 kids participate in the program. The Jubilee Consortium is a collaborative effort by inner city Episcopal churches to serve low-income communities in greater Los Angeles. Their mission is to create whole and just neighborhoods through enrichment opportunities and leadership programs that contribute to justice and equity. The Jubilee Consortium received a grant from the Leo Buscaglia Foundation in October 2019.
Parentis Foundation – Laguna Hills, CA. Received a grant to help expand their virtual tutoring services to two additional program sites and to train additional volunteers to provide reading support in the coming year. Training will include over 100 senior volunteers to tutor and mentor 250 at-risk students. The mission of the Parentis Foundation is to address a major contributor to poverty – the inability of children to read proficiently by the end of third grade. They provide both older adult volunteer mentors and young children with opportunities to enrich their lives, build self-confidence and share a sense of purpose through literacy.
Street Poets, Inc. – Los Angeles, CA. Received a grant to support their weekly Seeking Peace and Meditation Workshops. The majority of the funds will be used to directly support the salaries of their staff teaching artists with the rest for supplies, documentation and ongoing assessment of their program. These workshops reach roughly 250 people annually. The mission of Street Poets is to harness the healing power of poetry to build community and inspire the next generation to write, rap and dream a new world into being for us all. They seek to break the cycle of violence in the lives of at risk and incarcerated youth, build creative community by bringing youth and adults into deep transformational relationships and collaborate with other organizations and communities to inspire both individual and systemic change.
Strength in Support – Laguna Hills, CA. Received a grant for their Three Pillars of Support program. Funds will be used to offset direct program expenses including technology upgrades for virtual meetings and workshops, PPE and sanitizing equipment as well as salary support for their therapists and staff. Over 300 people will be served through mental health services, mentoring and workshops. The mission of Strength in Support is to provide mental health services to military personnel, veterans and their families, including individual and family therapy, mentorship and education to address all areas of our heroes’ wellbeing. Their vision is for every service man, service woman, veteran and their family members to have the mental health services, resources and support they need and deserve. Strength in Support received a grant from the Leo Buscaglia Foundation in 2018.
UCLA Watts Leadership Institute – Los Angeles, CA. Received a grant to directly support the 8 cohort organizations/10 individuals who are engaged in the second WLI cohort. The funds will underwrite a portion of their expenses as they plan and implement community programming and community engagement activities during the 2021-2022 fiscal year. The number of community members served by WLI will be determined by the individual cohort members as their programs develop. Founded in 2016, WLI is a 10-year initiative of the Social Justice Research Partnership within the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Drawing upon an innovative and engaging peer learning model, WLI directly addresses gaps in nonprofit knowledge, capacity and sustainability by supporting a cadre of community-based leader-mentors who will guide other leaders and small nonprofits in the future. WLI works under the 501-C-3 status of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs but receives no funding from them.
Village for Vets – Los Angeles, CA. Received a grant for their Food First program to support food box distribution. This will include paying a truck driver to deliver food boxes to formerly homeless and at-risk veterans who experience food insecurity and who live in permanent support housing in Los Angeles County. About 300 veterans and their families will receive food box distribution two times per month over the next year. Village for Vets fills critical gaps in key services for homeless and at-risk veterans in greater Los Angeles to support them on their journey to stability and independence. They fulfill this mission through four core programs that safeguard the health of vulnerable veterans; promote food, housing and employment security; and provide links to life-changing benefits and services.
Walk With Sally – El Segundo, CA. Received a grant to support training for 60 new volunteers during 2021. Funds will underwrite the training sessions including materials, lunch and snacks and a portion of the salaries of Walk With Sally’s Program Manager and Volunteer Coordinator. Walk With Sally’s mission is to provide hope through individualized mentoring and community support services to empower children experiencing trauma through a parent, guardian or sibling’s cancer journey.