CAMBODIAN FAMILY (3) - 2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Currently, we are the lead agency in the FEZ Community Empowerment Program, partnering with Templo Calvario CDC and the Mexican-American Opportunity Foundation. This program provides workforce development and other services to youths as well as adults residing in Santa Ana's Federal Empowerment Zone. We also partner with Santa Ana College, which, for the past 20 years, has provided and supported paid instructors to teach Vocational English as a Second Language classes at our center. Our vocational ESL class (now titled, "English for Work") helps prepare adults at beginning level English for the workplace. We partner with the Santa Ana Unified School District and its schools in our neighborhood which refer youths to our after school Youth Program. We collaborate with the Orange County Social Services Agency, St. Anselm's Cross-Cultural Community Center in Garden Grove, and Catholic Charities of Orange County in providing Employment and other social services to refugees in Santa Ana and other parts of the County. Other linkages that facilitate our contact with local families include The Children and Families Commission of Orange County, which has funded our First Steps Early Childhood Education program since 2001. We have worked with several City of Santa Ana agencies, including the Santa Ana Public Library, Police Department, Community Development Agency, and Parks and Recreation. We have worked with the city's Weed and Seed Program. We have worked with the Orange County Department of Education (staff training and information sharing), Orange County United Way (sharing best practices), Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance (information sharing), UC Irvine (volunteer tutors), the Minnie Street Coalition (advocacy and crisis services for neighborhood families), Orange County On Track (collaboration in capacity building grant), the Orange County Social Services Agency (refugee information, emergency services, and referrals). We collaborate with Human Options and Child Guidance Center to provide family advocacy and translation services through the Minnie Street Family Resource Center, which helps neighborhood resident access mental health and other critical services. We work with the Merage Foundation, which funds our neighborhood "Family Play Days," and provides volunteer staff for our First Steps program. We collaborate with the Community Action Partnership's Food Bank to distribute food to needy neighborhood residents. A very important collaborator that we have. worked with over the past two years is Earth Resource Foundation (ERF), an environmental educational non-profit organization developed to empower the general public with the resources needed to make environmentally sustainable choices and changes. ERF has provided our youths with community service opportunities involving beach and park cleanups and other activities, along with education about current environmental issues and local activities designed to address them. Through ERF, our youths have become better informed about practical things they do to become eco-friendly (fix all car leaks, reduce-reuse-recycle, bring your own cup). ERF has also established linkages with those who work in organic and community gardening, as well as environmental products and services. They lead a movement called "Youth Against Styrofoam" that has attracted over 1 000 youths in Orange County. They have established high school environmental clubs on a number of high school campuses in Orange County. These clubs provide students with an opportunity to effect positive environmental change at their schools and in their communities. Activities include beach and community cleanups, school recycling, green consumers, school environmental awareness, and green schools. 4 EXHIBIT A