In 2000, Judy Koch learned something surprising about many of the workers in her sheet metal factory in Fremont, California: They didn’t read books with their kids. As a former junior high English teacher now on a second career as a manufacturing CEO, Koch wanted to instill a love of reading in her employees. Her idea? Give away high-quality storybooks for free. This simple act created a tidal wave of expanded family literacy among the mostly Latino men who worked on the factory floor. Sterling Speirn, who was looking for innovative ideas as executive director of the Peninsula Community Foundation [...more...]

California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has long distinguished itself as a leader in public higher education by combining academic excellence with pioneering support services to help students from diverse, largely disadvantaged, backgrounds achieve life-changing success in the classroom and then the workplace. Two major investments underscore CSUN President Erika D. Beck’s vision for enhancing both educational opportunity and student well-being far into the future: A state-of-the-art technology facility that will be a hub of equity education and student innovation and a $20 million center that consolidates services for basic needs like food aid, clothing, and emergency housing. Sites have already [...more...]

According to researchers at USC, Los Angeles is currently home to 3.6 million immigrants – making one in three of its ‘residents’ immigrants. While Hispanics largely dominate the immigrant population, Los Angeles is home to a diverse range of ethnic groups and cultures. In the U.S. education system, many immigrant and first-generation children are often overlooked. Without the proper funding and attention, it’s common for the needs of immigrant children to be neglected. Fortunately, with the help of nonprofits, some of these gaps can close as they provide multifaceted support for those with the most need. Gabrielle Oliveira, who studies [...more...]

The children of Los Angeles, growing parallel to the city’s sprawling landscape of ecological, cultural, and racial diversity, represent not only the city’s future but also the embodiments of generational neglect to protect those left most vulnerable by crime. Within Los Angeles County, increasing disparities in wealth have starkly colored the city’s social fabric. Some regions of the city contain child poverty levels as high as 68 percent. In 2011, Barbara Davidson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo series of victims of gang violence in Los Angeles captured largely young subjects, grappling with the lingering effects of crime in dimly-lit funeral homes, locker [...more...]

People who love the arts understand what makes them so valuable. The arts don’t just entertain us; they challenge us, they spark our imagination, and present us with new points of view. No one is immune to the effecting power that exposure to the arts can give and the lifeblood of any community flows through the streets where arts are thriving. Music has the ability to bring people together in a way that nothing else can. Given the degree to which the arts enrich our lives, it would seem obvious to include them as an integral part of childhood education. [...more...]

There’s not just one reason people become unhoused, and there’s not just one way to solve the homelessness issue. What we do know is that it’s a problem that is growing, in Los Angeles and other major cities, especially among certain members of the population. It’s a complex issue that no one seems to have an answer for, and new programs are not making a dent in solving the problem.  According to data from the 2022 Department of Housing and Urban Development, Los Angeles had the largest homeless population in the country with 65,111 people experiencing homelessness. Thirty percent of [...more...]

When it comes to preparing for college, many students already have an idea of what to expect. They’ve rooted for their parents’ alma maters in football games since childhood, visited their older siblings’ dorm rooms, and been told by peers what AP classes they need to take to get into their preferred school. But for many aspiring higher education learners in Los Angeles – those who are first-generation Americans or the first of their families to even consider the possibility of attending college – there is no knowledge pipeline to pull from. No memories from their families to use as [...more...]

Los Angeles is a city of creative dreams and cinematic productions. It’s a place where starry-eyed people flock, and which exports culture-defining stories to the world.  Stories, though, aren’t L.A.’s only export. When it comes to sheer volume and impact, food might be on equal footing. L.A. County is the second-biggest exporter of food in the United States, contributing 6.5 billion pounds to the country’s food system each year, with a crop value of more than $177.5 million. L.A. imports food, too: At seven billion pounds, it’s the third-largest importer in the U.S.  Urban farmer, Ryan, after Sunday Harvest. Yet, [...more...]

The benefits of animal companionship are well-documented. According to a 2023 article on HelpGuide.org, by Lawrence Robinson and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., the human-animal bond has powerful, lasting health benefits for humans. Companion animals/pets can lower blood pressure, elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine (which calm and relax), they can lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease), and they can help reduce muscle tension and lower pulse rate. Plus, people with pets are less likely to suffer depression than those without pets.  For decades, research has also shown that child development is best supported by animal connection. For nonprofits [...more...]

The line grew steadily outside the unassuming building on the north side of campus. It was almost closing time on a Thursday afternoon, and the students knew it was their last chance before the weekend to pick up supplies they needed to keep their studies on track. The supplies they received in red California State University, Northridge-branded bags were not textbooks, pens, or calculators, but rather something more basic: food. “Let’s see, today I got canned beans and pineapple, pasta, and tomato sauce,” said Swapnil Doshi, a first-year graduate engineering student, peering into his bag. He goes to the CSUN [...more...]