In the last few months, we've introduced you to our newest cohort of grantees and their incredible work. Today, we wanted to take a moment and update you on the impact made by last year's My LA2050 Grants Challenge winners with their collective $1 million in grant funding.

Our 2020 grantee cohort represents the best and brightest in our region. These 25 organizations have worked tirelessly to serve Los Angeles through the challenges of COVID-19 – demonstrating incredible resilience, compassion, and kindness.

LEARN

Momentum Pediatric Therapy Network (Momentum PTN) directly served 494 clients, as well as their caregivers and family members, through its early education initiatives over the grant period. In response to decreased enrollment in in-person programs due to COVID-19, the organization produced more than 100 engaging therapeutic videos for families to use at home. The Momentum PTN Youtubevideos received hundreds of thousands of views from around the world.

Southern California College Access Network's Project SOAR Initiative continued to support the college and career goals of residents in public housing. In response to the pandemic, the Project SOAR team broadened the support available to students and families to ensure that students stayed the course with their educational plans to the greatest extent possible. The organization served 151 new students and parents and reengaged an additional 74 students through a new hybrid approach to its college advising.

Reading Partners supported students with a menu of on and offline supports, including 1:1 virtual literacy tutoring. In the 2020-21 school year, the organization was able to provide 12,793 virtual tutoring sessions to over 430 students across LA with the support of nearly 500 volunteer tutors. An impressive 81 percent of those students met or exceeded their primary, individualized end-of-year literacy growth goal.

Los Angeles Audubon's Urban Nature Network engaged youth across Los Angeles in virtual environmental education activities. LA Audubon connected 37 high school students and 21 summer fellows to leadership and career development activities and supported LAUSD teachers and their students by hosting Zoom nature and science enhancement activities for 447 students in grades 3 through 12.

Central American Resource Center (CARECEN-LA) used funding to support its Youth and Parent Center, which provides education and leadership development programs for youth and adults. The Center's programs include a Parent Council and a Youth Organizing Program. In addition, CARECEN-LA has helped hundreds of its community members get vaccinated against COVID-19 in recent months.

CONNECT

Ready to Succeed partnered with two peer organizations – Stepping Forward LA (SFLA) and Los Angeles Room & Board (LARNB) – to create and test an effective shared service model at the Opportunity House. Together, they delivered a paid internship, mentorship, and supportive housing model that benefitted 30 young adults from among each partner's overall service populations, including current and former foster youth. The partnership also resulted in the creation of a youth-driven mobile app that now has the potential to benefit countless current and former foster youth.

Union Station Homeless Services leveraged grant funds to support its Community Allies Program, which pairs an individual formerly experiencing homelessness with a volunteer to develop and sustain a new relationship and work collaboratively toward accomplishing short-term or long-term goals

LA Forward launched the LA 101 project — a written guide and accompanying campaign — to help Angelenos understand how local government really works, and how they can make a difference with their friends and neighbors. The guide covered major local elected and appointed officials and what they do, city and county departments and how they impact your life, the fundamentals of advocacy and organizing, and more. Over the last ten months, more than 6,000 people have visited the LA 101 website and nearly 3,000 people have watched the animated video.

Boyle Heights Beat implemented Voices/Voces, a storytelling project that includes audio and photography elements aimed at encouraging relationships between youth and the elderly and raising awareness around community and cultural issues while building and strengthening intergenerational social networks. In a survey of student participants, 99 percent said they learned new skills and 80 percent said they could see how the experience could be valuable in their future learning and life.

Creative Acts expanded its Art Attacks! program to all seven Los Angeles County Juvenile Camps and Halls to increase voter turnout amongst incarcerated youth, provide social and emotional support, and increase the youth's participation in community programs. Due to COVID-19, the program was implemented virtually over Zoom. As a result, there was a 100 percent voter turnout of program participants in the 2020 election.

PLAY

The City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (RAP) used grant funding to purchase and retrofit two new cargo vans for its Mobile Recreation Program. RAP anticipates that the vans will bring Olympic and Paralympic sports activities to more than 200,000 young participants without access to recreation facilities in their own communities.

The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF) built three Dodgers Dreamfields and Fitness and Training Zones at Gonzales Park in Compton in an effort to restore the park to its prior baseball glory and promote a positive environment for youth of all ages to play baseball and softball. These Dodgers Dreamfields are the first set of fields to feature energy-efficient capabilities and solar components, as well as be the first to infuse elements of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) through LADF's Science of Baseball curriculum.

Los Angeles Maritime Institute (LAMI) collaborated with 26+ informal and after-school Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education organizations in Los Angeles to improve virtual learning. The LA STEM Partners Coalition provided nearly 10,000 instructional hours of desperately needed, uniquely engaging STEM instruction to students in LAUSD during the Spring 2021 semester of remote learning.

Public Matters — in partnership with Los Angeles Walks, USC Kid Watch, and USC Sol Price School of Public Policy — worked directly with University Park parents from five USC area schools to draw attention to traffic violence and build residents' capacity to advocate for safe, people-friendly streets. Activations included conceptualizing and hosting 30 bilingual (English/Spanish) Zoom gatherings and distributing colorful map kits to 45 families to collectively discuss and document: neighborhood assets, how traffic safety impacts local behavior, incidents of traffic violence, and more.

Urban Warehouse adapted its after-school program to an online environment, shifting to one-on-one virtual tutoring sessions and hiring two additional mentors to accommodate the new model. The organization also continued to operate “Food Bank Fridays" to distribute much-need food to the East Los Angeles community to respond to needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

LIVE

Clinica Romero initiated primary care telehealth services, in direct response to COVID-19, delivering over 30,000 telehealth visits. The organization also employed six promotores (community health educators) that provided support to patients that needed help accessing telehealth services. In addition, over 12,500 patients were reached through in-person and virtual health education efforts, and almost 2,500 sanitation packs were distributed to individuals experiencing homelessness.

Crop Swap LA launched its Asante Microfarm, a pilot frontyard garden that grows more than 600 organically grown vegetable plants, automatically captures and recycles water, and stores 660 gallons of water for use to grow more food. Crop Swap LA donates 10 percent of the harvest to the community and to sell most of the rest within just a few miles of the microfarm, to neighborhoods that are home to people most affected by food apartheid.

Jenesse Center, Inc. utilized funds in support of the organization's domestic violence intervention, prevention, and mental health services as well as to cover expenses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, Jenesse Center experienced a 40 percent increase in the number of calls to its crisis outline, most likely due to an increase in stressors that lead to domestic violence incidents, and hired more staff to meet demand.

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) has three main areas of work: healthy housing, equitable development, and tenant rights. The economic strain placed on low-income tenants during the pandemic prompted SAJE to develop new alliances, networks, and tools to address the continued need for safe, healthy, and affordable housing by low-income communities of color. The organization reaches approximately 1,500 tenants per month through its Stay Housed program and providing one-on-one advice to thirty a month through our Tenant Action Clinic and other workshops.

Safe Parking LA operates ten safe parking lots in high-need areas with the capacity to host 209 vehicles each night. Over the last year, Safe Parking LA served more than 400 people experiencing vehicular homelessness with an average stay of six months. During the same period, the organization transitioned more than 100 of its clients into housing.

CREATE

Las Fotos Project worked toward the recent opening of its youth-centered photography studio, The Foto Studio, in Boyle Heights. While construction was delayed due to COVID-19, the organization moved forward with expanding its career training curriculum and launched photo studio services for clients by providing remote product photography and digital storytelling. During the grant period, 23 teenage girls and nonbinary youth received free training in product and lifestyle photography and completed 46 paid client projects.

Lost Angels Children's Project (LACP) offered three, 12-week classes for 36 students through its “Good Life" Manufacturing social enterprise. 88 percent of LACP's students graduated with entry-level proficiency in industrial arts “shop" skills (welding, fabrication, blueprinting, bodywork, paint & prep, electrical, engine assembly, and composites) and 92 percent are now employed in living wage jobs.

LA Sanitation and Environment laid the groundwork for its circular textile pilot project, a centralized HUB where material byproducts from businesses can be repurposed instead of going to landfills. This includes securing a like-minded vendor to help with the technical execution of the project.

Grid110 supported 56 new early-stage companies and entrepreneurs through virtual programs. The organization also partnered with the Annenberg Foundation to launch the Fund for South LA Founders, through which 20 companies led by Black and Latinx founders were selected to receive $25,000 grants raised by the community and capacity-building support through a 12-week program.

Flintridge Center served 48 individuals through its Apprenticeship Preparation Program for formerly-incarcerated individuals over the grant period as planned. The APP was implemented through virtual and hybrid mechanisms due to the circumstances of COVID-19. In the past year, the recidivism rate for all program graduates was 4 percent, compared to the California state rate of 46.1 percent.