Liberty Hill Blog: News from the Frontlines

Fact-Finding Van Tour

Byline: Linda Rondinelli

This past Saturday I attended a van tour organized by Liberty Hill Foundation. Van tours are one of the ways that Liberty Hill highlights the work of its grantees to donors, volunteers, and community members.

The van tour started at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning from Liberty Hill's office, and headed to the Boyle Heights and Watts neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

As we drove to Boyle Heights, Maria Brenes, Executive Director of InnerCity Struggle, gave us some background on the work her organization has been doing to organize youth and families on LA's Eastside to work together for social and educational justice and to promote safe, healthy and non-violent communities.

She told us the story of one of InnerCity Struggle’s long-term educational justice campaigns to relieve overcrowding and decrease high-school dropout rates at Garfield High School. InnerCity Struggle mobilized parents, students, and community members to fight for and win the construction of three new schools in East Los Angeles -- a new elementary school, high school and adult school. These were the first new schools that had been built in East Los Angeles in more than 80 years!

The van passed by the Torres High, new high school that opened in September 2010. We then stopped at InnerCity Struggle’s new offices in Boyle Heights to witness a voter engagement training workshop, where community members came together to talk about what the California Dream means to them, how the current budget crisis has affected them personally, and how they can mobilize other members of the community to participate in the political process and vote on issues that are important to them.

The van tour then headed to Watts. On the way, Peter Kuhns, an organizer with ACCE (Alliance of californians for Community Empowerment), talked about the high rate of home foreclosures in the neighborhood and how that is affecting the community. ACCE works with local partners and city and state officials to implement strategies to prevent banks from foreclosing on community members' homes and to give homeowners a fair shot at loan modifications. Another problem that happens once banks foreclose on a home is that the banks neglect to maintain the vacant and foreclosed properties, which then become a magnet for illegal dumping and crime in the neighborhood. ACCE has organized clean-ups of foreclosed homes in this neighborhood and brought publicity to this issue.

The van tour stopped at a house in Watts that had been foreclosed. ACCE community members had planned to spend the morning cleaning up the house, but discovered that the bank had put up a new fence around the blighted home to prevent them from cleaning it up (another common practice by the banks). So intead, ACCE held a brief meeting at the site.

 Linda Rondinelli is a volunteer at Liberty Hill.

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Pry Open the Freedom Gates

Mary McLeod Bethune (right) with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Last Saturday, Liberty Hill's President/CEO Kafi D. Blumenfield was honored by NCNW (the National Council of Negro Women) with the presentation of its Distinguished Community Leader Award recognizing people in the community who make a difference in the quality of life for all people. NCNW was founded in 1935 by Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955). Following are excerpts from Kafi Blumenfield's remarks on accepting the award.  

"The Freedom Gates are half ajar. We must pry them fully open." —Mary McLeod Bethune

We are deeply appreciative of NCNW’s leadership and programs that provide critical services to women, children and families here in  Los Angeles and across the nation. In reflecting on NCNW’s visionary founder, I wonder what Mary McLeod Bethune would see were she alive today?  

Amid the great advances that allow all of us to be here today, she would see that the “Freedom Gates" are still half ajar. Because what do we see happening around us this very morning? 

• This morning, in the richest nation in history, a thousand people were lined up at the L.A. Sports Arena — retirees, housekeepers, mothers, students— all without health insurance and desperate to receive the free health care offered to a total of 5,000 people over four days to treat high blood pressure, diabetes and other medical ailments.   
• This morning, middle-class wealth continues to  fall as the richest people in the nation become richer.   
• Today there are 2.6 million more Americans living in poverty than there were last year. One in five of  America’s children live in poverty.
• Today, a person's zip code is an indicator of life expectancy.  Do you live in 90210, Beverly Hills?  Well, your life expectancy is 86 years!  Live in 90062? In South LA? Your life expectancy is 75 years!  A 10-mile difference in Los Angeles means an 11-year difference in life expectancy.  
• And today, Blacks have the highest rate of poverty in the nation.

But Mary McLeod Bethune, that great civil rights leader and advisor to presidents, would — if she were here today — also see hundreds of students, low-wage workers, underemployed and unemployed people of all ages, activists and organizers — the 99% — fed up and protesting at City Hall. She would hear them calling for jobs, fairness, and a democracy that works. 

She would see a new generation of talented community leaders organizing for change in a new era. 

When I was in law school, I got to meet some of these talented community leaders for the first time.  I took a class that was studying an environmental justice problem in L.A.  As part of the class, we observed the excellent work of residents in the Athens Park area.

The residents were extremely concerned about a toxic-waste facility. In its yard, huge drums were stacked too high, one on top of one another.  Many were leaking. Separating this huge yard of ugly, hazardous-waste drums from the neat bungalows, fruit trees and gardens of the residential neighborhood was nothing more than a chain link fence.   

We learned that this neighborhood had rates of cancer that seemed higher than in others.  Neighbors talked about serious incidents of asthma. They wanted their neighborhood to be healthier. They wanted a solution that did not simply move a dangerous waste handler to another neighborhood that would suffer. They wanted the toxic waste handler to clean up its act. 

So the Athens Park residents turned to community organizing to try to clean up their neighborhood. 

A few years later, I learned that this effort was supported by Liberty Hill Foundation. 

Community organizing identifies and solves problems and changes lives. 

When community residents win practical changes and get a glimpse of what it feels like to exercise the fullest extent of their human capabilities, they can only organize for more.  

At Liberty Hill, we support some of the best organizing in the country:

• Through our Fund for Change we’re supporting nonprofits such as Special Needs Network and Black Workers Center that are developing smart organizing and advocacy efforts.
• We’re training such groups as Black Women for Wellness through our Wally Marks Leadership Institute for Change to help them develop critical skills to increase their success in protecting the health and well-being of Black women around the state.
• We’re convening leaders from organizations including Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) and others to discuss how to develop a pipeline of talented black organizers.
• And we’re working to reinvigorate philanthropy by organizing African American donors and allies to invest in community based solutions for social change through our Uplifting Change Philanthropy Summit held every February.

In my work at Liberty Hill I’m called to action by the legacy of NCNW's fourth National President, Dorothy Height. Her story inspires me, with her life-long leadership in the struggle for equality and human rights for all people, with her vision for a just society and a better world.

And  Mary McLeod  Bethune’s essay, "My Last Will and Testament," guides me in my work: “Faith, courage, brotherhood, dignity, ambition, responsibility. These are needed today as never before. We must cultivate them and use them as tools for our task of completing the establishment of equality. We must sharpen these tools in the struggle that faces us and find new ways of using them.”

The Freedom Gates are half ajar. I, along with my colleagues at Liberty Hill, join you all in working to pry those gates fully open!

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Food Day in L.A.

Join Liberty Hill in saluting The California Endowment and scores of other partner organizations across the country for participating in the national celebration/education event on Monday, October 24 called Food Day. It's a loosely organized affair that you can celebrate any way you like. Families, schools, restaurants, farmers markets, and just plain people-who-eat-food are organizing events of all kinds, ranging from something as simple as a neighborhood potluck to a project as ambitious as a statewide petition drive.  

Begun by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the day is meant by organizers to bring people together to "push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way." The organizers put forth six Food Day principles or imperatives:
*Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods.
* Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness.
*Expand access to food and alleviate hunger.
*Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms.
*Support fair conditions for food and farm workers.

California Food Day actions include a statewide petition campaign for smarter federal food and farm policies organized by Strategic Alliance/Prevention Institute, California Convergence and Roots of Change.

To find or add an event to the calendar, go to foodday.org.

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Asian American/Pacific Islander Philanthropists Convene

  Byline: Kristin Aldana-Taday

Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) is a national membership and philanthropic advocacy organization dedicated to advancing philanthropy and Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Liberty Hill staffer Kristin Aldana-Taday is an AAPIP member and a member of the giving circle The Circle of Change. These are  Kristin's reflections on a September gathering in San Francisco of Asian American Pacific Islander giving circles from around the country. They were posted along with reports by other AAPIP members on the organization's blog last week.

A PATH TOWARD ACTION
Last month, I headed to San Francisco for the weekend to co-represent one of Los Angeles’ three giving circles, The Circle of Change.  I joined members of 15 other giving circles from across the country to connect with other donor-activists, share our circle’s methodology and learn best practices from others, as part of AAPIP’s National Convening.  It was a weekend that reinvigorated my commitment to social justice and helped me carve out a path toward action—a path not just for me to follow myself, but one I can travel as part of a larger community.

AAPIP executed one of the most exciting and inspiring morning meetings ever to open a conference. The speakers included Eugene Cho of One Day’s Wages; DREAM Activists David Cho, Catherine Eusebio and Ju Hong; and even San Francisco’s first Asian mayor, Ed Lee.

I can still hear some of their and the other speakers’ words…

“We believe in the value of humanity, that every single person matters.”

“For undocumented students, the most basic form of civil disobedience is to get an education.

“Your activism protects our democracy.”

There were several standing ovations. There were also tears and laughter. The inspiring words set an assertive tone and called on us to take charge, take action and make change.  The audience of nearly 150 people were pumped as a cohort of giving circle leaders were reassembled in another room to learn about each others’ work.  Personally, I was ready.

Attendees were diverse, and included individuals from giving circles as different and far-flung as the Cherry Blossom Circle in Washington D.C., the Muslim Women’s Giving Circle in San Francisco, the Asian American Giving Circle of Greater Houston, and the Asian Mosaic Fund in Philadelphia.  Some members had been in their giving circles for ten years while others were just beginning their first day there at the conference and were still figuring out a name!

Our giving circles are addressing the challenges faced by Asian, Asian American, South Asian and Pacific Islander communities.  Right now, AAPI communities aren’t getting enough funding or attention from the government or foundations—and giving circles are working to fill that void.  Our circles are the beginning of a movement of democratic philanthropy. Eventually our 15 circles will grow to twenty, thirty, forty and fifty—our goal.

It was so clear to me that my individual giving was now part not only of a circle of giving, but also part of a larger circle of change. I am grateful for AAPIP being the catalyst for the giving circle gathering and for this movement.

Postscript: In the dozen or so days since the AAPIP conference, I’ve already signed a petition to prevent the deportation of a Dream Activist, donated a gift to One Day’s Wages and am preparing materials so I can ask our Circle of Change to consider giving to the group Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education (ASPIRE).  And I can’t wait to do more!

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Black Worker Center at Work

 

Byline: Joaquin Beltran

Within one year of its launch, the Black Worker Center (a Liberty Hill grantee) has proven to be an effective grassroots organization as exemplified through its contribution to the Sept. 29 victory at the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Board meeting when the Board gave staff the go-ahead to begin negotiating a project labor agreement (PLA) construction careers policy with the Los Angeles and Orange County Construction Trade Council.

As part of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education, the Black Worker Center was created to focus on job creation and economic development in the African American community in Los Angeles. In regards to the MTA victory, Lola Smallwood Cuevas, founder of the Black Worker Center, explains “our goal is to double representation of Black construction workers on transit projects, particularly on projects that align with predominantly Black neighborhoods.”

Working as part of a coalition, the Black Worker Center was able to win the first transit authority project labor agreement and local hire policy in the nation. “The five-year agreement covers $70 billion worth ofprojects and is estimated to create more than 270,000 jobs,” said Cuevas.

The strategies employed by the Black Worker Center--education, advocacy, and coalition building-- have been effective in creating more opportunities for job creation. Explaining its successful strategy implementation, Cuevas says, “We put the issue of Black worker discrimination on the table and provided viable solutions to address the issue. As a result of our research and advocacy, the Black Worker Center has been invited by the Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa and the Builiding and Construction Trades Council to join a working group to develop the agreement’s anti-discrimination and disadvantaged worker criteria language.”

The next step is for the project labor agreement to be written and ratified.

Joaquin Beltran is a CORO public affairs fellow at Liberty Hill.

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Take the "High Road" to Eating Out

Byline: Sylvia Moore

Restaurant Opportunity Centers United (ROC-United) , a Liberty Hill grantee, jumped into action as soon as it was founded in 2010. It reached out to low-wage restaurant workers and it undertook research into local conditions. Its February 2011 report Behind the Kitchen Door, Inequality and Opportunity in Los Angeles, the Nation's Largest Restaurant Industry  caused a stir. Now it's "promoting the high road to profitability" by highlighting 10 "High Road Restaurants" with a profile rolling out each week on the ROC blog. These profiles describe each model employer's labor practices and benefits offered to workers-- which nevertheless may sound modest-- such as paid vacations, health care or paid sick days, wages that start above the minimum wage, and the ability to receive wage increases.

The ten restaurants of ROC's Restaurant Industry Roundtable are a foodie's dream of fine dining establishments, neighborhood favorites, and inexpensive cafes, and represent a tantalizing variety of cuisines. “We want to use this as a model for the industry,” says Cathy Dang, co-coordinator for ROC-United’s Los Angeles chapter, ROC-LA. said of the recognition program.

And the "High Road" restaurants are (scroll further down for more details):

• Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park
• LOCAL Restaurant in Silver Lake
• Chimu Peruvian Soulfood in Downtown L.A.
• Homegirl Café in Chinatown/Downtown L.A.
• Mama’s Hot Tamales in MacArthur Park
• Craft Los Angeles in Century City
• Chaya Restaurant Group (Chaya Brasserie, Beverly Hills; Chaya Venice; Chaya Downtown)
• The Hungry Cat, Hollywood
• The Gorbals, Downtown 
• Pacific Dining Car, Downtown

Homegirl Cafe, which serves contemporary Mexican and American food and baked goods, is at one end of the spectrum of restaurants recognized. It's part of Homeboy Industries, the nonprofit organization that helps at-risk youth and youth formerly involved in gangs. The 45 employees at Homegirl receive health insurance, sick leave and vacation, and also get training in food safety. Homegirl’s manager, Erika Cuellar, says employees are also offered English classes, therapy sessions and legal assistance. Cuellar says that providing for its employees benefits society at large. “If we’re taking care of our staff, they will take care of the organization,” says Cuellar. “If you take care of your staff, you’re also helping form productive members of society.”

Craft Los Angeles, part of a national group of fine dining restaurants started by celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, has also gotten the “high road” seal of approval. Craft offers its employees discounted health insurance, paid vacation and sick days, and flexible spending accounts. “Being a restaurant that offers that to employees today is fabulous,” says Ashley Robey, Craft’s human resources director. “It creates a safety net for them. It creates more of a family feel as well. You know the restaurant will be there for you.”

Providing sick leave for restaurant employees is particularly important-- for the safety of customers as well as the workers. Dang says more than 60% of restaurant workers go to work sick because they can’t get time off, and that poses a health risk for the public and consumers.

In recognizing restaurants that treat their employees well, ROC's goal is to improve working conditions industry-wide and win restaurant workers a living wage. The ROC report found that the median wage among L.A. restaurants workers is $9.24 per hour, but according to Dang, an actual living wage for a city with a high standard of living such as Los Angeles should be about $19 an hour.  “We want to make a restaurant job a middle class job,” she says.

Each week, the ROC blog adds details about one of the restaurants on the "high road" list, but here's a preview of what each employer does right:

Chimu Peruvian Soul Food is a casual take-out restaurant located at the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles. Starting wage at Chimu is $10/hour. Chimu also offers employees access to ROC-LA’s health care cooperative, and trains and promotes from within.

LOCAL Restaurant is a casual restaurant serving American-style cuisine with locally grown, organic ingredients. Starting wage at LOCAL is $10/hour, and line cooks are salaried at a living wage. Workers are offered paid sick days, access to ROC-LA’s health care cooperative, and the restaurant trains and promotes from within.

Homegirl Café, a casual restaurant and bakery, provides full health benefits, paid vacation and sick days, paternity and maternity leave. Employees start at above minimum wage, and are ensured a safe working environment through health and safety trainings.

Good Girl Dinette is a casual restaurant specializing in Vietnamese and American comfort food. Good Girl Dinette starts lowest paid workers at $10/hour, trains and promotes from within, and provides workers access to ROC-LA’s health care cooperative.

CHAYA Restaurant Group, a fine dining restaurant, specializes in French/Japanese fusion cuisine. CHAYA trains and promotes from within, provides 401k options, two weeks paid vacation, and ensures equal opportunity of workers regardless of race, gender and age.

Craft Los Angeles is a steakhouse specializing in American cuisine. Craft provides employees with health insurance, and trains and promotes from within. Craft has a strict equal opportunity policy for all workers, and hires and promotes regardless of race, gender and age.

The Hungry Cat, a casual fine dining restaurant, specializes in seafood. The Hungry Cat provides workers with health insurance, and trains and promotes from within. 

Pacific Dining Car, a venerable fine dining restaurant and steakhouse, specializes in American cuisine. Pacific Dining Car trains and promotes from within the company regardless of race, gender and age. Web site:

The Gorbals is a casual fine dining restaurant specializing in American cuisine inspired by flavors and dishes from around the world. The Gorbals subsidizes employees’ health insurance, trains and promotes from within, and helps employees obtain significantly discounted public transit passes.

ROC-United was initially established in New York to support restaurant workers displaced after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Since 2008, the organization has expanded to eight cities around the country with 8,000 low-wage restaurant worker members.

Sylvia Moore is a Liberty Hill public affairs fellow.

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Important Notice about Queer Youth Fund Applications

 

On Saturday morning Liberty Hill Foundation staff discovered that the janitorial staff at our new building, contrary to policy, mistakenly discarded twelve submissions for funding to the Queer Youth Fund that had arrived on the previous day.

We are asking all organizations that submitted Letters of Intent to contact the Liberty Hill offices immediately to confirm we have received your submittal.  Please contact Kristin Aldana-Taday at 323-556-7203 or via email at ktaday@libertyhill.org.

We greatly appreciate your assistance and support in reaching the organizations who applied for funding from this important program.

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Queer Youth Fund invests $500,000

 The Theater Offensive photo by Steph Hodge

Byline: Barbara Osborn

Liberty Hill Foundation is pleased to announce $500,000 in grants to LGBTQ youth. The five grants will be made through the Queer Youth Fund, one of Liberty Hill Foundation’s donor advised funds.

Five community organizations from around the country will each receive $100,000 multi-year grants to advance safety, self-determination and justice for LGBTQ youth in isolated or hostile environments.

The 2011 Queer Youth Fund grantees are Brown Boi Project (Oakland, CA); Colorado Anti-Violence Program (Denver, CO); Make the Road New York (Brooklyn, NY); The Theatre Offensive (Cambridge, MA); and Three Wings (Seattle, WA).

Brown Boi Project in Oakland is receiving support for developing the leadership of young masculine-of-center womyn and trans/straight/queer men of color. Through leadership development, political education, exposure to community organizing, life-plan skills development, and deep work on mental and physical health, the Brown Boi Project will cultivate spaces to explore and develop healthy frameworks for masculinity within the context of family, gender, race, sexual orientation, and class.

Colorado Anti Violence Program in Denver is receiving support for the Queer Youth Violence Prevention Project, which will prevent sexual and dating violence through community organizing that addresses the root causes of violence. The project builds a base of empowered, committed and skilled LGBTQ youth leaders to support violence prevention organizing efforts in Colorado and nationally, and strengthens and radicalizes the local and national LGBTQ youth-led movement for social justice by creating spaces for queer youth to inform movement priorities.

Make the Road NY in Brooklyn receives funding to launch its Safe Communities Initiative, a multi-faceted project to promote respect, opportunity and safety for LGBTQ youth of color at school, work and home. MRNY's two LGBTQ youth of color communities will lead high-impact campaigns that build on its deep community roots and a significant base of political power and experience to combat homophobia and discrimination in public schools, retail workplaces, and policing policies.

The Theater Offensive in Cambridge will undertake an expansion of True Colors: Out Youth Theater. True Colors is a youth empowerment and social activism program for youth who identify as LGBTQ. It uses theater as its vehicle for catalyzing social change. Youth write and produce plays that address issues affecting LGBTQ youth. They then tour these plays at schools, community centers, and special events throughout Massachusetts.

Three Wings in Seattle receives funding supporting cultural arts and activism, holistic wellness and collaborative education for the King County queer youth community. Three Wings will educate and train queer youth as community organizers in service of community, healing and social justice.

“Each year, I am awed by the extraordinary courage and abilities of the young people in organizations awarded Queer Youth Fund grants,” co-founder Weston Milliken says. “These young leaders are helping to advance full equality for all Americans and it is an honor to support their passion for social justice work.” 

The Queer Youth Fund was established in 2002 and has been housed since 2003 at Liberty Hill. It gives substantial multi-year grants to small youth-led organizations that promote equality and justice for lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and questioning youth (LGBTQ) under 24. So far, more than $3.5 million has been awarded to groups in 21 states and Canada. Each grant is $100,000 and paid out over three to five years.

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