Stories – Page 2 – The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County

Many families of children with disabilities require assistance to meet their children’s special needs. Founded in 2006 by Paul and Bridget Ready in memory of their son, Jack, Jack’s Helping Hand provides assistance to local children struggling with cancer, special needs, and disabilities in San Luis Obispo County up to the age of 21.

How do they do it? Jack’s Helping Hand fulfills requests for assistance with medical equipment, provides transportation, food and lodging for out-of-town appointments and procedures, and helps with medical bills when there are no other sources to cover these needs. Their team assists over 70 families each month locally, and when they travel for appointments, surgery, and chemotherapy outside of our county.

The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County is grateful to support the work of Jack’s Helping Hand in the form of multiple grants. Various grants from our Foundation, the Alex Quaglino Family Fund, and Women’s Legacy Fund have successfully supported their Assistance Program enabling families to travel to specialty children’s hospitals for the best possible care, support the purchase of hearing aids, therapeutic braces, mobility devices, and supportive seating devices.

The Robert H. Janssen Foundation – a fund of The Community Foundation – has been a significant supporter of Camp Reach for the Stars, the no-cost summer camp for children dealing with cancer and their families. Located at Camp Yeager in Cambria, this family event is filled with activities, camping and plenty of opportunities for fun. The Camp aims to give all kids coping with cancer the chance to be kids—an experience often taken away or put on hold by the disease. It allows the children to shed the hefty “cancer patient” label yet be surrounded by others who understand similar experiences.

This month, their team is especially proud of Jaylin, who just finished a two- and half-year treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia B. Providing the fuel, food, and lodging to alleviate that added financial burden on her parents has been our mission since meeting them in 2019. Being able to support her family for their treatments in Los Angeles has been a humbling experience for their team. Jaylin’s mother states it best:

“Jack’s Helping Hand has been such a blessing to our family. There are no words to describe how thankful we are to them. Driving 6 hours round trip to LA several times a month and having to stay overnight in hotels for treatment and procedures would have been impossible without their assistance. We are also so thankful to all the donors who give to Jack’s Helping Hand because of them Jaylin was able to go camp last year and was able to attend many fun events over the last couple of years.”

Jack’s Helping Hand has recently started building a universally accessible and inclusive park on 30 acres of generously donated land in Nipomo. The Jack Ready Imagination Park will be a place for children with disabilities to play with their families and peers. Current plans for the park include a large accessible playground, therapeutic riding facility, hardscape courts, playing fields, hiking trails, and barbeque and picnic areas.

Learn more and support Jack’s Helping Hand at https://www.jackshelpinghand.org/

Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month – a month-long celebration that recognizes the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. With a population rich in Hispanic heritage, our county is full of diverse programs, collaboration, and organizations that not only better the lives of Hispanic Americans and their families, but positively impact all SLO County residents.

The Promotores Collaborative of San Luis Obispo County was established by the Center for Family Strengthening and works to build, foster, and support a network of promotores – a group of community leaders who serve as liaisons between their communities and health and social services providers.

Promotores are community-based and are made up of outreach members and volunteers who work to eliminate barriers between public and private organizations and underserved minority populations. They provide training, emotional support, and materials in order to empower a healthier community. They act as family educators, health or patient advocates, outreach workers, peer educators, and system navigators.

Their impactful work ripples across our community: agency partners and community organizations seek their bilingual and bicultural expertise to provide Mental Health Interpretation services, provide health outreach education at community events and food distribution sites, and help promote healthy family functioning. By working closely with their community partners, the Promotores Collaborative identifies resources needed to benefit San Luis Obispo County residents and complements (not duplicates) existing efforts of the County’s Health and Human Services Department.

“The Promotores have created a tremendous impact in their community. The Latinx community has expressed that they feel welcome at the Public Health Mobile Clinics, food bank distributions, and other local events where the Promotores participate,” says Erica Ruvalcaba-Heredia, Director of Programs. “Families have shared that when they see Promotores they know they can trust them, and they will always provide the right resources for them.”

Promotores are unique because they provide services in Spanish, Mixteco, and occasionally in English. They are culturally competent, they go into the community to do outreach, business, and residential canvassing, they support the mobile vaccine clinics and provide direct services to the Latinx community in San Luis Obispo County. They serve as community liaisons and go above and beyond by working weekends and after business hours in order to warmly connect Latinx neighbors to various community resources and agencies.

In spite of the Pandemic, the Promotores have continued with their leadership educating the Latinx community by providing culturally appropriate and translated (Spanish, Mixteco & English) information. The Promotores Collaborative have been recognized by the Public Health Department, the Behavioral Health Agency, First 5 SLO County, and SLO County Food Bank as essential workers in San Luis Obispo County.

This year, the Community Foundation continued our support of this inspirational program by awarding $20,000 in funding to the Promotores through the Women’s Legacy Fund. “We are very excited and grateful to The Community Foundation because we will be able to continue providing education and support to the Latinx community by providing financial literacy classes. Some of these topics include setting goals, saving and building savings, dealing with debt, understanding credit reports and scores, and others. Our aim is to provide the tools and information to help the community set and achieve goals; build skills in managing money, credit, and debt; and choose financial products that are right for them. Learning to use these tools will help them reduce the financial stress that they are dealing with, especially during these uncertain times.”

Moving forward, the Promotores aim to continue to build the Promotores Collaborative capacity in order to promote health-related resources and create new ways to involve Latinx neighbors in SLO County, specifically in rural and underserved communities.

Follow The Promotores to learn more:

Website: www.cfsslo.org
Facebook Community Page: https://www.facebook.com/slo.promotores
Facebook official Page: https://www.facebook.com/PromotoresSLO
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slopromotores/

Category: Stories

Grantee Highlight: Jack’s Helping Hand

Grantee Highlight: The Promotores Collaborative of San Luis Obispo County