50 Monterey County GIVES! 2023 mcgives.com Community & Social Services DONate online mcgives.com Community Association of Big Sur (CABS) Year Founded: 1985 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 2 paid, 35 volunteers Budget: $400,000 595-0072 cabigsur.org Big Idea: The Community Association of Big Sur works to advocate for the locals who attempt to live and thrive within this remote, beautiful, and often challenging region. This nonprofit’s Big Idea advocates for increased community housing units and responds to various local crises, from natural disasters to food insecurity. This nonprofit’s work helped inspire the U.S. Forest Service to reimagine how both locals and visitors interact with the more than 300,000 acres of the Monterey District within the Los Padres National Forest. “I am writing to express my gratitude to CABS as a recipient of grants after the winter storms of 2023. I am a single mother with a 9-year-old daughter. We live with my parents on their property on Gorda Mountain and they are in their 80s. I was grateful to be able to stay here with them and support them and our neighbors as a wilderness responder. Having the Big Share come bring us supplies, and the efforts of CABS with resupplies, have been very helpful in getting our basic needs met. Moreover, this gesture of kindness helped us feel that we are not forgotten on the wild coast. I just wanted to express my appreciation for all that CABS does for Big Sur residents and how much it has meant to me and my family during these challenging times.” -Jasmine Star Horan Community Fund for Carmel Valley Year Founded: 1945 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 25 paid, 65 volunteers Budget: $4,585,000 375-9712 cfmco.org Big Idea: This place-based fund organized through the Community Foundation for Monterey County invests in efforts that improve the quality of life for people in Carmel Valley. The group’s mission is to help cover the needs of Carmel Valley residents, funding grants to support new projects as well as community pillars like the Carmel Valley Community Youth Center, Hastings Preserve youth programs and the Cachagua Fire Protection District. Donations to this fund help to build a thriving community for generations to come. “I have decided to join the board here at Community Fund for Carmel Valley because I was able to witness the amazing impact that this organization has had on this community. Since its inception, it continues to focus on supporting school-aged children in our community and strives to provide opportunities for our remote, outlying and underserved areas.” -Caton Avilla Housing for Kids Fund Year Founded: 1945 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 25 paid, 64 volunteers Budget: $4,584,999 375-9712 cfmco.org Big Idea: In the 2022-23 school year, Monterey County education officials identified 11,734 children as living without sufficient housing. Most were doubled or tripled up with other families, and 1,054 students were living in shelters, motels, vehicles or encampments. The Housing for Kids Fund at the Community Foundation for Monterey County developed a multi-phase, Big Idea strategy to address the need for housing for families, including a $500,000 fundraising goal. Donations will go to fulfill unmet needs that other nonprofits are well positioned to implement, such as housing subsidies and creating more affordable housing with landlords willing to rent to the unhoused. The Housing for Kids Fund will also conduct a public awareness campaign around the specific challenges that unstable housing creates for kids, including poor academic performance, and ideas for how we can fix it. “I have been volunteering with Housing for Kids for over a year. The group is composed of leaders with a high level of skills in a variety of areas including education, architecture, real estate, construction, media, medicine, nonprofits and more. I know we are going to make a huge impact, and I feel excited to be a part of this group and to create positive change in our community.” -Elizabeth O’Malley spotlight Through this work I escaped the school-to-prison pipeline, and the creation story of the school-to-organizer pipeline emerged.” Alexis Mendez, Building Healthy Communities
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