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SAN BERNARDINO, CA— — Southern California Edison (SCE) donated to Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy (YVYLA), to help give support to their S.A.M. Program, which stands for Student Achievement Mentor Program. Most of SCE grant funding is targeted to help meet the needs of diverse ethnic groups, seniors, people with special needs, women, low-income, and gay and lesbian populations groups that are often under-served.

A donation of $5,000.00 was donated to the Young Visionaries SAM Program. Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy’s Student Achievement Mentoring (SAM) is a program designed to address and reduce suspensions through effective implementation of positive behavior support systems. SAM is a goal-oriented program designed to support the educational and professional aspirations of all students. The Program increases the completion of developmental courses, retention and graduation rates. To accomplish this, the program increases exposure to educational, professional, and civic opportunities.

The Student Achievement Mentoring Program through mentoring works to:

• Improved Self Confidence and Self Esteem

• Increase Motivation

• Broaden horizons and experience of students

• Raise Achievements and Aspirations

• Build Relationships

• Establish Employment Development Skills

• Support to Graduation

The City of San Bernardino is home to a diverse and prominently minority population: 66% Hispanic, 14% African American, 13% White, 4% Asian, and 3% other. 23% percent of the population is foreign-born. In San Bernardino, the 2016 median household income was $39,472, compared to $63,783 for the State. Unemployment has remained above both state and national levels since the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2018 unemployment rate for the City was 5%, compared to 3.9% for the county, 4.6% for the state, and 4.1% for the United States.

Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy has large annual outreach events for the San Bernardino community. For example, February, “Hearts for Hygiene” at this event YVYLA collects 200 bags of hygiene and distribute them to the youth in our programs that need hygiene. June is Young Visionaries Annual Youth Conference, this conference average up to 300 youth in attendance. The month of August the youth group has an annual “2000 Backpack and School Supplies” giveaway, the month of November is a Thanksgiving event giving out 1000 Thanksgiving Turkeys and boxes of food to 1000 families in need. During the month of December for Christmas YVYLA has their annual 1000 Toy giveaway to 1000 community youth.

“We would like to thank, Southern California Edison for their generous donation and recognizing the need in our community” says Terrance Stone, CEO and Founder of Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Over one thousand teachers got extra help for their classrooms at the first I.E.’s Largest Teachers Appreciation Day event held at Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County (CAPSBC) on Saturday, October 26. Teachers from all over San Bernardino County chose from over $1 million in new school supplies donated by the Family and Kids Foundation.

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The event was open to elementary school teachers from all school districts. CAPSCB and Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy provided warehousing, sorting, and distributing the items, as well as publicizing the event to teachers and lending a hand as attendees browsed through the materials and chose items for their classrooms.

Assemblymember Eloise Gomez-Reyes stopped by to support the event and presented certificates of appreciation, saying, “This event celebrates the joy of teachers who work tremendously hard to provide the best learning experience that will prepare all students to have successful futures.”

CAPSBC board member Dr. Margaret Hill said, “These items go a long way in helping teachers who reach into their own pockets to purchase materials so they can offer their students the finest classroom experiences. With this wonderful donation from the Family and Kids Foundation, we were able to provide an unlimited amount of school supplies to all teachers that participated.”

Established in 1965, CAPSBC works with our low-income communities to address barriers to economic stability. This is accomplished under an array of services and assistance programs including food/nutrition, home energy, and family development. For more information on CAPSBC and its programs, visit their website at www.capsbc.org.

By John Coleman, Community Photographer

For many years the Riverside NAACP Chapter, Anderson Copeland Memorial,  the Kansas Avenue Seventh Day Adventist Church, Armed Forces Commitee  and the Rubiboux SDA Church have cooperated, annually, in presenting a special Memorial Day, Veterans Recognition Luncheon. 

The public was invited.  Those who serve or served in the military were invited to wear their uniform or symbols.

The 2019 observance was held on Monday, November 11, 2019, at the Cross Word Christian Church, Education Building in Moreno  Valley.

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SAN BERNARDINO, CA— Options For Youth (OFY) hosted a Grand Opening for its third campus in San Bernardino on November 5, 2019. The event brought together community partners and the local residents to celebrate with a ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by the San Bernardino Chamber of Commerce, tour the new facility, and learn more about the non-profit OFY-SB public charter school program.

For its contribution to the San Bernardino community, State Senator Mike Morrell’s office presented Options For Youth – San Bernardino (OFY-SB) a Certificate of Recognition at the event. OFY-SB’s Principal Ileana Arroyo said the school’s goal was to “provide alternative paths of academic excellence and overall success for those students whose unique needs have not met solutions in a traditional high school environment.”

OFY-SB has been working with the San Bernardino City Unified School District for the past ten years, educating students in grades 7-12 who are facing social, emotional, and academic challenges in traditional public schools. OFY-SB has helped underserved students by providing a flexible and customizable lesson plan, tutoring and sports, and by encouraging students to re-engage with their community through volunteer work with Ronald McDonald House, Walk for Kids, Helping Hands Pantry, Community Gardening, Angels Closets in Redlands, and Red Cross Blood Drives.

The OFY-SB campus is located in the El Dorado Plaza by the Walgreens Pharmacy. The campus space features a large open communal room with several SGI (small group instruction) classrooms on the outer perimeter.

For more information, visit https://ofy.org/

SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Ms. Madeline Farlow, one of the community leaders and employee of the Employment Development Department spent time with Social Lites, Inc. of San Bernardino Beautillion Knights on a beautiful fall afternoon on Saturday, November 2, 2019 at the Center for Youth and Community Development.  Ms. Farlow addressed goal setting, importance of professional appearance and role-playing with the participants in soliciting for ads for scholarships. 

The 53rd Beautillion Scholarship 2019-2020 program under the leadership of Mrs. Tina Darling, Beautillion Chairperson is now in progress.   Its’ not too late for young men seeking scholarship opportunities to participate in this scholarship and personal development program. 

Community leaders who have spent time with participants include Dr. Samuel Gibbs, Mr. Richard Blacksher, Dr. Rose Culpepper and Bessine Little, City Council Woman, 6^th Ward. 

Weekly meetings are on Saturdays from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Center for Youth & Community Development (formerly Boys and Girls Club of San Bernardino) located at 1180 W. 9^th Street, San Bernardino, CA  92411.  The program will commence on March 28, 2020 at the National Orange Show of San Bernardino.

For more information, please telephone chairperson, Mrs. Tina Darling at tribicu2@msn.com or Ms. Lisa Blacksher, President at lisasocialities@gmail.com or Mrs. Bettye Brewster, Business Manager, bettyebrewster@yahoo.com

By Tess Eyrich

In 2010, during the last decennial population count, nearly one in four Inland Empire households didn’t mail back their census questionnaire. What’s more, another 40,000 people throughout the region didn’t receive a questionnaire by mail at all.

Why does this matter? Because undercounted regions miss out on vital federal and state funding, hindering potential growth in those regions for years to come. In a place like the Inland Empire, which has seen significant growth over the past decade, missing out on funding could be especially damaging. 

This fall, staffers and students at the University of California, Riverside, are mobilizing in a variety of ways to ensure a more accurate regional population count in 2020. 

Leading the charge is the Center for Social Innovation, which two weeks ago spearheaded the formation of UCR Counts, the university’s official Complete Count Committee. An initiative of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Complete Count Committees program is key to creating census awareness in communities nationwide through targeted outreach efforts.

UCR Counts brings together representatives from the center, which is housed within the School of Public Policy; Student Life; Governmental & Community Relations; the Associated Students of UC Riverside, or ASUCR; and Undocumented Student Programs.

Complementing the committee’s efforts, on Oct. 16, ASUCR passed its first Senate Resolution of the fall 2019 quarter, encouraging  student leaders, student organizations, and administrators to participate in census efforts.

The resolution was co-authored by Eric Calderon and Luis Huerta, two members of ASUCR’s Executive Cabinet who also serve as student representatives on UCR Counts. It emphasizes UCR’s responsibility to host informational sessions about the census and promote census education and resources on campus. 

Perhaps more importantly, however, it underscores the university’s role in driving outreach to so-called “hard-to-count” communities, including undocumented immigrants, non-English speakers and/or households, and racial and ethnic minorities, among other groups. 

“One key statement in the resolution that will drive our work is, ‘Students are often important advocates, translators, guides, and trusted messengers for their family, friends, and community,’” said Marlenee Blas, associate director of the Center for Social Innovation, who is leading the on-campus census efforts. “We’re really relying on our students as trusted messengers for their communities.” 

During a visit with members of UCR Counts on Oct. 24, Ditas Katague, director of California Complete Count, the office coordinating census efforts statewide, discussed the importance of UCR’s work and shared outreach strategies. 

“Our hard-to-count populations in California are full of fear,” she said. The current political climate, Katague noted, has increased wariness among many people in hard-to-count communities, which also include low-income groups, people experiencing homelessness, and those living in rural or geographically isolated areas.  

“People keep asking, ‘What’s different this year?’” she added. “But what they should be asking is, ‘How can we make the difference?’ Because everyone knows the political environment this year is different. But for me, what’s going to make the difference is the youth — period.”

Katague said the Census Bureau’s pivot to a digital format in lieu of traditional paper questionnaires puts young people on the forefront of outreach and education efforts. 

For the first time, the bureau is asking most people to answer the census online. Katague believes this opens up a realm of opportunities to promote the census through social media, for example, as well as for young people to help their older relatives and friends with completing it.

Katague was joined in the visit to UCR by Mignonne Pollard, education outreach manager for California Complete Count, and Quintilia Ávila, regional program manager for California Complete Count’s efforts throughout Southern California. 

Pollard said California Complete Count will work over the next year to partner with the University of California, individual UC campuses, and UC’s various Basic Needs programs to ensure harder-to-count populations are reached in 2020. 

The statewide team will also use the recently passed ASUCR resolution as an example when visiting other universities to promote census efforts, they said.

On campus, UCR Counts has plans to collaborate with several departments and groups, such as Residential Life, the ethnic and gender programs based in Costo Hall, and the Academic Senate.

A major aspect of the Oct. 24 meeting involved figuring out how UCR Counts might better connect with undocumented students, in particular, and those with ties to other hard-to-count populations both in the region and statewide.

The campus committee builds on the Center for Social Innovation’s ongoing work in coordinating census outreach efforts across Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science who serves as director of both the center and the Inland Empire Complete Count Committee.

“Efforts like UCR Counts will give students a once-in-a-decade opportunity to deepen their applied research skills and serve their communities, either through paid census job opportunities or through service-learning opportunities that draw on their talents and passions,” Ramakrishnan said.

Likewise, Blas emphasized that UCR students — many of whom are Pell Grant recipients and first-generation college students — have the potential to make big impacts in their communities.

Students can assist with the committee’s efforts by talking to their families and friends about why it’s important to participate in the census. The census will take place on April 1, in the middle of the first week of the spring 2020 quarter, making spring break a prime time for initiating conversations with loved ones about how to participate.

“Concentrate your efforts on the hardest of the hard to count,” Katague said. “And please document everything you’re doing,” she added, so that in another 10 years, the campus might be able to follow the blueprint established by UCR Counts. 

FONTANA, CA—- The Fontana Pastors United is having their first community block party on Saturday, November 16, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Fontana.  Father Stephen Casmus has agreed to co-host the event and he is excited to bring the community into his church and being to help those in need. The Loveland Church, under the direction of Dr. Chuck Singleton, will host the event.

They are expecting hundreds to be in attendance, so come early. At the event, there will be free food, free groceries,  free gifts and prizes for the kids, free clothes and free health checks, job resources. The host church will be Loveland Church located at 17977 W Merrill Avenue, Fontana, CA 92335. Pastor Kevin Moore is an associate minister of Loveland and CEO for Fontana Pastors United organized the event.

You are invited to come and have a great time, churches from around Fontana will be in unity and one accord. We are the body of Christ and members of one another. For more information call Pastor Kevin Moore at 909-829-0171 or Loveland Church at 909-356-LOVE or contact Father Stephen Casmus at 909-822-9917. You can preregister at sbpastorsunited.org. Thank you. “Providing hope to a Generation”.  The Fontana Pastors United is praying for You.

LOS ANGELES, CA—-  2,390 participants came together at the LA Zoo November 2 to walk for friends, family and loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Amongst the crowd were caregivers, those living with Alzheimer’s, civic leaders, celebrities and members of the community who want to play a part in fighting a disease that affects 5.8 million Americans.  Friday the Association announced the event has surpassed its fundraising goal of $750,000.

Funds raised at the event provide free, local care, support and advocacy, as well as research initiatives. Monies raised also fund the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline (800.272.3900), which offers services in 200 languages.

During the walk’s opening ceremony FOXLA Good Day LA Host Rita Garcia and FOXLA Anchor Bob DeCastro brought the crowd to tears as they shared their personal journeys with Alzheimer’s disease.

“My grandma passed away after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2012. I can’t tell you how difficult of a journey it was to watch the disease  progress so fast and so deliberate in such a strong and independent woman,” Garcia said. “It was heartbreaking to constantly remind her of who she was, who we were, how much she had taught all her granddaughters and how we would continue with her legacy of traditions, customs and, my favorite, her special dishes.  I walk in honor of by dear grandma.”

Nikki DeLoach, actress and Alzheimer’s Association Celebrity Champion, shared her personal commitment to the cause in honor of her dad, who is living with Pick’s disease, a rare form of dementia.

“The road with dementia is a long, winding, emotional battle,” said DeLoach. “But today, we were reminded that by coming together at Walk to End Alzheimer’s we are paving the way to finding a cure for this devastating disease, and supporting one another on this journey.”

This year’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s Los Angeles welcomed a new partnership with Tandem Careplanning, a public benefit corporation that helps clients and caregivers obtain and manage in-home care relationships.

“As a company that strives to be a partner throughout the caregiving journey, Tandem Careplanning is proud to support the Alzheimer’s Association and work together to ensure continued improvement in care and research for a disease that affects many of our clients,” said Joshua Greer, CEO and co-founder of Tandem Careplanning.

DeCastro summarized the energy that brought everyone together to raise awareness and funds for those fighting this disease now and in the future.

“From the people living with Alzheimer’s to their caregivers, it takes an incredible amount of compassion and courage to cope with this devastating disease.  With the same love, strength and faith we will someday find a cure,” he said.

Of the Americans living with Alzheimer’s in the United States,  more than  670,000 in California. Additionally, more than 16 million family members and friends provide care and support to people living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Every 65 seconds someone in the U.S. develops the disease.

The final walk of the 2019 Walk to End Alzheimer’s California Southland 14-city series will take place November 9 in Palm Desert. For more information, visit alz.org/walk.

By Holly Ober

“It shouldn’t be about country club California. This should be a California everyone can live in,” said Christopher Thornberg, director of the UC Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development, neatly summarizing the theme of the center’s 2019 annual conference. 

“The House That Wasn’t Built. Housing Scarcity: The Inland Empire’s Natural Barrier to Economic Growth” was held Nov. 6 at the Riverside Convention Center. It coincided with the release of a new economic forecast for the U.S., California, and Inland Empire economies.

Thornberg said that contrary to the bleak vision of inland California embedded in some statewide economic development agendas, the Inland Empire, which consists of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has a robust economy and the 14th largest labor force in the nation. Over the past five years the Inland Empire joined the Bay Area in fastest job growth in the state. The region’s unemployment rate of 4% is the lowest it has ever been, equaling that of Los Angeles, and it has the same income per level of educational attainment as Los Angeles and Orange counties. 

However, while coastal areas boast large, highly paid professional and technical sectors, healthcare, government, and logistics dominate the Inland Empire’s economy. These jobs often require less education and fewer skills, and generally pay less than jobs in technology, finance, and educated professions that lead the coast. 

Rather than regard this as an impediment to developing the kind of economy found in coastal California, Thornberg suggested the Inland Empire’s labor force and housing supply have been necessary supports to California’s growth all along and comparison to coastal areas is both methodologically unsound and unfair. 

“Comparing local economies to San Jose is like comparing your health to an Olympic athlete,” Thornberg said. “The only place that looks like San Jose is San Jose.”

The housing supply, however, has not kept pace with the population, which over the past 25 years has grown three times faster than that of the coast. Apartment vacancies, for example, are at less than 4%. The region is not building enough housing, and neither are Los Angeles and Orange counties. This situation will increase regional competition for housing that is already pushing out the Inland Empire’s workforce as housing grows scarcer and rents rise. While some worry the rich are leaving California in droves, far more people at the other end of the spectrum are abandoning the state for places like Nevada and Arizona, where housing is available and affordable. 

The Center for Economic Forecasting’s analysis indicates a crisis of housing supply, not affordability. California has the second lowest vacancy rate in the nation and the highest percentage of adults living with parents. Thornberg said California needs to be issuing 200,000-250,000 building permits per year to sustain a 2% job growth rate but is only doing 130,000.

“Lower-skilled workers moved inland because coastal areas put the kibosh on housing 20 years ago,” Thornberg said. “It’s like we’re saying, ‘We already kicked you out of the coastal areas; now we want to kick you out of the inland, too.’”

The center’s analysis finds the housing problem is a land use issue that needs to be solved at the local level. Thornberg said a poorly thought-out tax model exacerbates the housing crisis. Most city revenue comes from business taxes, which encourages local governments to invest in business development, not housing. If cities have to build housing, they want it to be high-end and often enact restrictive laws to prevent high-density alternatives that attract lower-income occupants, like apartment complexes. 

“Baby Boomers are often the primary opponents of housing because they’ve got theirs already,” said speaker Steve PonTell, chief executive officer and president of National Community Renaissance, or National CORE, a nonprofit affordable housing developer with a focus on community revitalization. He said high-density housing does reduce home value, but self-interest shouldn’t influence a city’s housing decisions.

PonTell said the Inland Empire’s key to continued economic development is to build more housing, but the region has overzoned and overbuilt for business and underzoned and underbuilt for housing. 

“Housing should be considered a necessary infrastructure,” he said. “Cities can make this happen. Inland Empire cities should lead when it comes to how cities solve these problems. We need to be more aggressive about how we come together to do that.”

Paavo Monkkonen, an associate professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, said in his presentation that cities could add more housing by building to zoning capacity. One example would be to build up, not out — think high-rise apartments in urban centers instead of single-family homes in sprawling subdivisions. He also said building more housing in high-rent areas will spur economic development. 

“The decisions that need to be made to continue amazing growth in the Inland Empire are local,” said Thornberg. “We need to start having these land use conversations and making decisions.”

In addition, the Center for Economic Forecasting also released its new economic forecast with current outlooks for the U.S., California, and Inland Empire economies. A copy of the forecast and conference book can be downloaded in its entirety here.

Select key findings:

• Of all the industrial and business development in the Inland Empire, rapid expansion occurring at the Ontario International Airport is a standout. Year-over-year growth in passenger traffic at the airport has jumped 9.6% compared to 0.3% growth at Los Angeles International Airport and a 3.4% drop at John Wayne Airport in Orange County.
• Due to the multiple ways employment is measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the California Employment Development Department, and due to a lag in some of the data, the new forecast finds current monthly figures may be underestimating the Inland Empire’s true jobs growth trends. There is a good chance growth levels will be revised upward when the annual benchmarking occurs in March 2020. 
• Despite the trade war that has been underway since March 2018 with some of California’s most vital trading partners, the Inland Empire’s logistics sector has continued to grow at a robust pace, with 3% job expansion from August 2018 to August 2019. 
• As of the second quarter of 2019, average rent in the Inland Empire reached $1,390/month, a 3.8% year-over-year increase. Notably, rents are most expensive in submarkets closest to L.A. County where vacancy rates are also the lowest, indicating higher demand, likely from commuters who drive to the coast for work.
• Sales of existing single-family homes in the Inland Empire were down 6.4% in the first half of 2019 while they fell 7.2% statewide. The pullback can partially be traced to last year’s sharp rise in interest rates and limits on mortgage deductibility that resulted from the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The good news is 2018’s surge in interest rates has largely been erased, and today’s lower rates should stimulate the market.
• Yield curve, schmield curve: The strong correlation in this data to the onset of a recession is traditionally driven by the Federal Reserve raising short-term interest rates to cool an overheating economy. The inverted yield curve is like the skid marks left behind after trying to avoid going over a cliff. But in this case, the U.S. is not facing a cliff. The national economy is stable and the expansion will continue.

RIVERSIDE, CA— The planet Mercury will pass in front of the sun on Monday, November 11, and telescopes at the University of California, Riverside, will be ready to observe the latter part of the transit.

Reporters and the public are invited to the free event from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., with free parking in Lot 26. No RSVP needed. (The transit will commence at 4:35 a.m., Pacific Time, and end at 10:04 a.m., Pacific Time.)

The telescopes will be positioned in the softball field on campus, in the UCR Baseball Complex.

After November 11, the next Mercury transit will be in 2032.