Yvette Walker
With KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino led and Latino serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Joining me today is Cesar Navarrete, President and CEO at Children's Fund. Thank you so much for being with us today, Mr. Navarrete.
Cesar Navarrete
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here with you.
Yvette Walker
How were you drawn to the Children's Fund to now becoming the CEO?
Cesar Navarrete
For me, it's a very full circle story. As a child, I remember standing in line to receive a box of food, standing in line to receive a toy during the holidays, receive my first pair of clothing... and every year after that, receiving clothing for back to school, backpack supplies. And so for me, now realizing that I am a product the nonprofit sector, being able to then be able to give back to our community by being and leading an organization like Children's Fund that is all about giving back to our kids and making sure that they have all the tools that they need, providing them with support, opportunity or hope, to make sure that they leave crisis, and turns to stability, give them everything that they possibly need to succeed.
Yvette Walker
What exactly is the Children's Fund mission within San Bernardino?
Cesar Navarrete
So our mission is giving vulnerable children support, opportunity and hope by breaking destructive cycles through community partnerships. We have three pillars through our programming. We have the support pillar, opportunity and hope pillar. Through our support pillar is where we really meet the basic needs of all of our families and all of our kids, whether it's utility assistance, food assistance, rental assistance, school supplies, clothing, food, anything that a child may need to help stabilize the family. And that's where our support programs come into play. And then we have our opportunity programs, which are my favorite programs, and that's where we really inspire kids to think and dream big. So we have post secondary education scholarships, working with different organizations to make sure that our kids have an opportunity to go to college in any sort of post secondary education. And then we have our recreational scholarships. So these are scholarships that are provided to all of our kids who want to participate in extracurricular activities. So if we think of Little League, we think of soccer, we think of band, we think of art classes, anything that a child may want to participate in, but because of lack of funding in the household, they're not able to participate. So we know that a lot of our community programs have a component to help our kids pay for those dues and restriction fees. Usually they have to sell chocolates or car washes or do something, but we know that our kids can't go to their caregivers, can't go to their families and say, Can you buy these box of chocolates? So to them, it's already a barrier. So they don't even try to attempt to participate in extracurricular activities. So we have those programs under opportunity programs, then we have our Hope programs. And our Hope programs are all about giving our kids hope through gifts, and this includes our holiday gift, our Celebration of Giving program distributes over 40,000 gifts to community partners who then distribute out to their families during the holidays. We support birthday programs, giving gifts to kids who are system involved, making sure that our kids know that somebody out there really cares about them distribute together over 40 different scholarships every single year, averaging about $67,000 that go back to our kids in our community.
Yvette Walker
So Cesar tell us, how are these kids identified? How many of them are there, and why is it so important for us to support them?
Cesar Navarrete
So the way we work is we partner with over 50 different agencies throughout the county. This includes our school districts, our other nonprofit partners, and our county agencies, both Children Family Services that work with foster children and our probation department that works with system involved youth, and so they submit other referrals when they identify a need, and so we're able to help fill that need to support the whole picture, support the whole family, support all the kids while they work through their crisis situation.
Yvette Walker
Cesar what is the best way to support the Children's Fund? Do you have fundraisers or events coming up we should know about?
Yvette Walker
That is so exciting, celebrating 40 years of serving our youth in San Bernardino. I also hear the Children's Fund was recently recognized.
Cesar Navarrete
We have several fundraisers throughout the year. Right now, we have our scholarship campaign going on. Our goal is to raise $30,000 so we can distribute at the end of next year for our graduating seniors to go into post secondary education, whether it's college, university or trade school, we want to make sure that they have support that they need during the holidays. We do our annual Celebration of Giving program, and so you'll see us partnering with Spark of Love and our County Fire Department to collect over 40,000 gifts that are going to go back into the community. And then in this coming year, we're going to be celebrating our 40th anniversary, so there'll be a lot of opportunities to help us and celebrate another 40 years in the future by donating to this campaign coming up to celebrate our 40th anniversary.
Yvette Walker
That is so exciting, celebrating 40 years of serving our youth in San Bernardino. I also hear the Children’s Fund was recently recognized.
Cesar Navarrete
Yes, recently, in May, we were recognized as Nonprofit of the Year by Assemblymember Robert Garcia.
Yvette Walker
That is remarkable. Is there a website that listeners can visit to learn more or contribute?
Cesar Navarrete
There is children'sfund.org for more information.
Yvette Walker
Cesar, thank you so much for your work, for your vision and for your dedication to serving the children of San Bernardino.
Cesar Navarrete
Thank you for having me.
Yvette Walker
Cesar Navarrete is President and CEO at the Children's Fund. Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at kvcrnews.org/IELatinoVoices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media and is funded by generous support from the CIELO Fund at IECF, uplifting and investing in the IE's Latino community. For KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker.
