Buscaglia

Walk With Sally

Friendship Activities for Adult Mentors & Youth Mentees

Friendship activities are a key component youth mentoring program for children and families impacted by cancer. Walk With Sally hosts quarterly group friendship activities with all mentoring friendships, their families, and prospective families as well. The goal is to provide an educational and experiential day-long event while offering all participants a sense of community. And most importantly give families the chance to just have FUN.

These activities have included the Gentle Barn, Whale Watching at the Ocean Institute, and Surfing & Ocean Healing (in partnership with the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation) at El Porto Beach.

Click here to learn more about Walk with Sally. 

Friendship Foundation

Friendship Foundation received a grant to purchase supplies such as art supplies, crafts, sports equipment, and games for school clubs. Friendship Clubs will reach approximately 2,500 children during the grant year. The Friendship Foundation transforms the lives of people with special needs, their families, volunteers, and eventually society. Friendship Foundation’s mission is to bring happiness and companionship to children with special needs in a way that celebrates their uniqueness and individuality through participation in age-appropriate social, recreational and educational activities with their peers. Build leadership skills and foster the values of altruism, volunteerism, and sacrifice among student volunteers. Impart renewed strength, comfort and peace of mind to the parents of these special children. And heighten the community’s awareness, sensitivity, and sense of responsibility with regard to responding to these vital needs. The Friendship Foundation (then known as the Friendship Circle) also received a grant from the Leo Buscaglia Foundation in 2010.
 
The values that students learn while apart of Friendship Foundation goes on to serve them throughout the rest of their lives. Whether it’s the volunteer or the student who had someone take the time to show they care. What an amazing way to share love with our fellow humans. Leo would be so proud.

Street Poets

Street Poets 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. 

Click here to learn more about 2021 recipients. 

Parentis Foundation

Parentis Foundation is the charitable affiliate of Parentis Health. Our flagship program Experience Corps Orange County is an intergenerational literacy intervention program. Parentis Foundation changes lives by positively and significantly impacting both our older adult volunteers and the future generation of young readers. Experience Corps OC is the Orange County affiliate of AARP Foundation Experience Corps.

Our Mission: Parentis Foundation seeks to address a major contributor to poverty – the inability of children to read proficiently by the end of third grade.  Through an intergenerational approach, we provide both older adult volunteer tutor/mentors and children with opportunities to enrich their lives, build self-confidence, and share a sense of purpose through literacy.

Our Purpose: By pairing kindergarten through third-grade children with highly trained volunteer tutors, we significantly improve the literacy skills of children at risk of not reading fluently by fourth grade, while simultaneously providing meaningful opportunities for older adults who serve as volunteer literacy tutor/mentors in after-school youth organizations throughout Orange County.

Our Vision: Guide the next generation of readers. Mentor future leaders.

Our Core Values: Responsibility, Respect, Knowledge, and Care.

Jubilee Consortium

Over 250+ individuals of every walk of life have dedicated a year of service and community to JYLA. The impact of this service is expansive in experience; socially, personally and spiritually.
In retrospect of her year, JYLA (EUIP) alum Janet Schmidt of service year 2005-06 said,
“When I finished in 2006, I was just proud of myself for taking a year off after college, and doing service work and living in community. And I think now I look at it as just one of the best choices I’ve made in my life. It wasn’t taking a year out- it was just more developing skills and personality traits that I really value today that I wouldn’t have received anywhere else.”
 

Teacher’s Fund

Teacher’s Fund received a grant to assist with supplies and other materials as requested by teachers in Santa Barbara County. Teacher’s Fund supports transitional kindergarten through 12th grade teachers in southern Santa Barbara County, Santa Ynez, Buelton, Los Olivos, Solvang and Lompoc public and private schools by granting funds for classroom needs not met by other sources.
 
Helping one teacher can have an impact on hundreds of students. A school librarian introduced an engineering unit where they read engaging, age appropriate books for K-6th graders that encourage building and design. After reading, students had the opportunity to build with different modalities. The librarian shared “important cross curricular standards were met and most importantly, students were engaged” Her one request directly impacted 604 K- 6th grades students at her school.

Fit 4 the Cause

Our Zumba®Kids instructors braved the outdoor elements, keeping our children active and socially engaged during our history’s most challenging public health crisis. In soaring heat, high winds, precipitation and winter chill, they kept our youngest participants moving and happy. While this school year is ending soon, FIT is very grateful for these devoted, enthusiastic, loving energy bullets: Terri Grayson and Geraldine Kimball and in collaboration with Conejo Recreation & Parks District, Ida Johnson.
To learn more about our various programs, please contact us at: https://fit4thecause.org/
 

Sharefest

Another successful day of personal growth for the students of our Workforce Readiness Program! Thanks to our instructors, and the entire team at Working Wardrobes in Santa Ana, our students were treated to an instructional workshop on the “Power of a Paycheck,” as well as their own personal shoppers who gifted them with not one but TWO complete business suits of their own… INCLUDING purses and shoes. The kindness and generosity from the Working Wardrobe team was phenomenal and we are deeply grateful for this experience. One day at a time, our students are becoming Workforce Ready!

Click here to learn more about Sharefest. 

Walk With Sally

A peek inside the friendship between mentee, Kai, and mentor, Eric. Kai came to Walk With Sally after his dad passed away from colon cancer over Christmas 2015. On March 11, 2016 he was matched with his mentor, Eric. Here they are nearly a year later, basically best buddies.

Save Our Youth

Save our Youth received a grant to support teen activities in their SOY Center in two main areas: to support their Peer Tutoring, a part of their SOY Academic Program and to support their Community Performance Program which is a part of their Art and Music Skill Development program.  Funds will also help to cover general operational costs incurred to operate these programs at their teen center.  The mission of SOY is to provide a safe and welcoming space for teens to find hope, to nourish a sense of self and an ability to grow and to develop interests and skills to become productive members of society. 

Click here to learn more about Save Our Youth.

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