With LA's Future in Mind, My LA2050 Grants Challenge Finalists Charge Ahead Amid COVID-19

LOS ANGELES, July 13, 2020 – Today through July 20, 2020 Angelenos have the opportunity to direct $1,000,000 in funding to the social impact projects that will best help our region bounce back from COVID-19 and create a more prosperous future for all.

Amid this crisis, the 25 finalist organizations in the My LA2050 Grants Challenge offer solutions to today's most pressing problems and much-needed hope for our future—connecting youth and older adults stuck at home through intergenerational story-telling, offering services to vulnerable individuals experiencing vehicular homelessness, expanding telehealth access for low-income and uninsured community clinic patients, and more.

Anyone can go online now to challenge.la2050.org and vote for the five proposals that they would most like to see implemented. The top winning organizations will be awarded $100,000 from the Goldhirsh Foundation to bring their projects to life over this next year, with runners-up receiving smaller cash grants.

The My LA2050 Grants Challenge is an annual community-led effort to invest in projects that make Los Angeles the best place to live, learn, create, connect, and play. This year's challenge is especially urgent, as it opened when COVID-19 hit organizations with both an overwhelming demand for their services and new restrictions on their operations. Our 25 finalists, selected from a pool of 285 applicants, are powerful examples of the local organizations that face this crisis head-on and continue to provide for those in need with determination, ingenuity, and optimism.

Here are the finalists' inspiring proposals, up for vote now:

• Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, creating an online tool to help tenants access crucial legal resources and avoid eviction.
• Clinica Msr. Oscar Romero, expanding its clinical services, including primary care and telehealth offerings, to underserved and uninsured Angelenos.
• Crop Swap LA, addressing food insecurity, improving health, and creating green jobs by installing gardens at the homes of low-income families.
• Jenesse Center, equipping those in South LA experiencing domestic violence with resources to break the cycle of violence and thrive.
• Safe Parking LA, partnering with Neighborhood Councils to train Angelenos to welcome, mentor, and engage with their neighbors experiencing homelessness.
• CARECEN, expanding its Parent & Youth Center programming to empower immigrant parents and youth to advocate for quality education.
• Reading Partners, closing the literacy gap by intervening at the critical 4th-grade level by pairing 1,000 local students with reading tutors.
• Los Angeles Audubon Society, investing in its Urban Nature Network to empower underserved youth to experience nature and become local environmental stewards.
• Pediatric Therapy Network, expanding access to early education programs for low-income children with, and at risk for, developmental delays and disabilities.
• SoCal College Access Network, increasing access to higher education by placing counselors on public housing sites to provide personalized college advising to families.
• Lost Angeles Children's Project, training underserved youth in the Antelope Valley for careers in manufacturing to open opportunities for employment.
• Grid 110, providing Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in South LA with free accelerator programs and support to bring their business ideas to fruition.
• Las Fotos Project, opening a youth-centered photography studio in Boyle Heights where teen girls can earn income while building professional skills.
• Flintridge Center, training formerly incarcerated people for lucrative jobs in construction through a hands-on, wrap-around apprenticeship program.
• LA Sanitation and Environment, creating a centralized recycling hub to repurpose industrial material byproducts and help reach 100 percent landfill diversion by 2050.
• Creative Acts, drawing on the power of the arts to inspire incarcerated and justice-involved youth to become civically-engaged and exercise their right to vote.
• Boyle Heights Beat, raising up youth to be community reporters on the radio and print to keep their community's important stories alive through its bilingual Voices project.
• LA Forward, creating an interactive Los Angeles 101 guide to illuminate the workings of our City and County government and give Angelenos the tools to make a difference.
• Ready to Succeed, helping youth aging out of the foster care system defy the odds in college and throughout their careers through mentorship.
• Union Station Homeless Services, building a peer network to support formerly homeless individuals as they settle into new homes and neighborhoods.
• Public Matters, launching a University Park Slow Jams activation to empower groups, schools, parents, and youth to advocate for safe streets in their community.
• The Garage Board Shop, expanding its afterschool program where underserved students are rewarded with skateboarding gear and skate time when they reach academic goals.
• Los Angeles Maritime Institute, building upon its Ocean Adventure Together Program for underserved youth to discover the life-changing experience of a voyage at sea.
• Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, constructing three “Dreamfields" in Compton equipped with fitness zones, solar technology, and a “science of baseball" curriculum.
• LA City Department of Recreation and Parks, bringing outdoor recreation to local parks via Mobile Recreation vans, with Olympic and Paralympic sports, skateboarding, dance, and more.