The recent Portrait of Sonoma, painted a bleak picture of Black people in Sonoma County, pointing out that we have lost ground in health, education and earnings. Our youth need help.
We would use the $5000.00 to hire a part-time person with experience running a youth program similar to ours.
We are a small, total volunteer organization, so we don’t have any resources that are not used by us. One of the things we may be able to help a new organization with is how to connect with other organizations. We are celebrating our 45th anniversary this year and have gained experience in connecting with other community organizations.
We have had some wonderful successes in the last couple of years during the pandemic. In 2021 we had an exhibit in storefronts downtown Petaluma, with 71 families participating. There was a picture of each family and a brief description of “What family means to them”. The exhibit brought people downtown who were tired of being stuck at home. We have it on our webpage.
Last year, because the museum was closed, we were able to have our exhibit at the museum and we made a video of it and showed during our virtual Black History program.
The most exciting thing is that we wrote a grant to Sonoma County Community Foundation and received funding to take our youth to Washington DC this summer. This is wonderful for our youth, it will integrate academics with social and emotional experiences.