A total of eleven Community Partners projects are currently in the running for $1 million in challenge grants from LA2050, an annual initiative of the Goldhirsh Foundation. Public voting is open until April 29, and Angelenos may vote for one proposal per category.
Winning organizations, to be announced June 4, will each receive a $100,000 LA2050 grant. Take a look at the list below and cast your vote for your favorite Community Partners projects listed by LA2050 goal categories and with links to their entries:
LEARN
Mayor’s Fund for Education
The Long Beach community recognizes that a child’s first five years are crucial for building the foundations that will affect how they learn and interact for the rest of their lives. This proposal will work to address early childhood education needs in Long Beach by strengthening institutions so they can better expand early education enrollment, broaden community awareness, and increase family support resources. LEARN MORE
The Engineer Factory
The Engineer Factory will strengthen the math skills of 500 students in third through eighth-grade at 10 under-performing schools in South Los Angeles, Inglewood, Watts, and Compton. This will be accomplished with weekly #MathSwag Labs at the schools led by future STEM teachers in the CSU Math Science Teacher Initiative. The program will also use peer volunteers and parent participation. LEARN MORE
Pacoima Beautiful
The Green Together Collaborative received a grant of $23 million from the California Strategic Growth Council’s Transformative Climate Communities Program to increase the climate resilience of Pacoima and Sun Valley through tree planting, solar panel installation, active transportation, and more. They seek support for a project coordinator to marshal the efforts of multiple agencies and for a resilience center that will serve as the focal point for the community’s fight against climate change. LEARN MORE
CREATE
Justice for My Sister Collective
The collective’s Black, Indigenous and People of Color Futurisms Screenwriting Lab is an intensive nine-month sci-fi/fantasy genre screenwriting fellowship for aspiring filmmakers of color. A total of 10 fellows (ages 18-30) will receive advanced screenwriting training, mentorship, and industry exposure as they develop original science-fiction and fantasy short film or TV scripts. Scripts will be read at a series of staged readings with industry professionals in attendance to garner interest and visibility for their projects. LEARN MORE
Circle of Friends
The project’s L’Atelier LA will provide a creative outlet and career exploration for youth marginalized by disability or adversity. Inspired by “Project Runway,” inclusive teams will face challenges like expressing yourself and your dreams through your look, re-purposing material for affordable, ecological fashion, and creating adaptive clothing for people of all abilities. L’Atelier will culminate with a final runway show and documentary planned, designed, modeled and filmed by students of all abilities. LEARN MORE
CONNECT
Investing in Place
The public transportation advocacy group’s pop-up bus lane project will show how dedicated bus lanes can untangle buses from cars and get people to places quickly and reliably without needing a private automobile. LEARN MORE
Changeist (formerly Big Citizen Hub)
Changeist immerses young people in a six-month civic action experience, exploring the social justice issues they care most about and fostering future citizen engagement. The addition of AmeriCorps members into the current program model will double the number of youth served annually to300 youth annually. LEARN MORE
The Civics Center
Although California allows eligible 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, few high schools have the resources or training to manage on-campus voter-registration in compliance with the law. The Civics Center has launched a pilot project to provide resources to empower students and school communities to take ownership of their future and take advantage of these laws. LEARN MORE
LIVE
Community Veteran Justice Project
A vote for Community Veteran Justice Project (CVJP) will support the expansion of resources within Veteran Resource Centers (VRCs) across LA County. This expansion would allow veteran work-study students to be employed by Community Veteran Justice Project and work at individual VRCs. The staffing increase would provide more personalized supervision and allow for follow-up with veterans in need. The LA2050 funds will increase Community Veteran Justice Project’s ability to connect more veterans with comprehensive services across LA County that allow them to seek college, entrepreneurship, home buying, healthy families, and overall wellness opportunities. LEARN MORE
RootDown in LA
RootDown LA has developed a workforce of young people from SouthLA who run the program and know how to build demand for fresh produce directly in their neighborhoods. Their year’s project would employ youth aged 16-24 to run live cooking demonstrations at six farmers markets as a way to increase awareness and consumption of healthy foods. The program will also position these young workers at the forefront of local food systems change in South Los Angeles. LEARN MORE
Move LA
Move LA will build a broad coalition of diverse supporters toward a grand bargain to dump diesel, accelerate deployment of zero-emission cars and zero and near-zero emission trucks, and fund clean, regional transit infrastructure. Just like the effort that led to success with Measure M, MoveLA believes the region’s residents can work together to achieve the LA2050 goal to reduce exposure to air toxins and address greenhouse gas emissions seriously and sustainably, leaving climate change and air pollution in the past. LEARN MORE
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