Great things are happening at
Pretend City Children's Museum
due to the Stay at Home orders. As a result of parents staying home with their children, they are experiencing an increase in demand for online developmental screenings. Being home together is an opportune time to complete these screenings and are free to all. The tool, Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), is approved by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It looks at a child’s strengths and challenges, educates parents about developmental milestones, and incorporates parents’ expert knowledge about their children to learn more about their development.
We think you will enjoy this
LA Times article
featuring Pretend City Children's Museum and how they are serving 0-5 aged children in their healthy development and early learning, while Pretend City is temporarily closed.
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As a follow up to a recent Fieldstone4U, Operations Manager of
Orange County Human Relations
Don Han,
graciously offered his services to our Network. He will offer feedback or assistance to any organization requiring an employee handbook. He has extensive experience updating handbooks especially pertaining to cultural sensitivity, diversity and inclusion language.
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We added a new Robyn to the team! Not to our staff, but to our Fieldstone4U webinars! A huge thank you to
Robyn Willis
, Vice President of Retail Operations of
Habitat for Humanity Orange County and resident self-care guru
for presenting Chair Yoga and Meditation in two separate Fieldstone4U sessions.
To view these recordings, click
here
for Meditation and
here
for Chair Yoga.
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Hats off to
Michael Galliano
, President & CEO of
My Day Counts for his resiliency and creativity! His organization
closed their doors to more than 450 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities on March 17, resulting in a complete disruption to the critical support services and care the organization provides to the most vulnerable citizens in our community.
As you can imagine, people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities struggle with any change to their normal daily routine. Their entire team mobilized, under Mike’s leadership, and developed strategies to serve the entire population remotely.
Over the course of the last month, My Day Counts has successfully:
- Helped non-essential working participants file for unemployment benefits
- Facilitated an employee's request for a leave of absence due to a compromised immune system
- Ensured their college students ability to move forward with classes
- Supported participants who are months from receiving their high school diplomas
- Continued to host a “Job Club” for unemployed participants, who want to keep their skills sharp
- Provided extensive education and training pertaining to staying healthy during this COVID-19 outbreak
Click
here
for the full press release.
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Kudos to
Ali Woodard
, President & CEO of
Fristers
.
In spite of COVID-19 restrictions, they continue to support teenage parents and children in Orange County through virtual platforms! Community resources for food, diapers and other essentials, learning activities and teaching videos for preschool children, family weekend adventure ideas, LIVE events featuring our valued community partners and educators, all provided via Instagram and Facebook. Weekly group meetings for teen moms and dads have been replaced with weekly Zoom meetings, to ensure young families have a community of support around them. Case Management services continue via phone, text and Zoom, helping parents
access needed resources, navigate challenges, manage children's behavior, or simply connect as friends and sisters.
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A big thank you to
Sarah Efthymiou,
Directing Attorney with the
Public Law Center
for presenting at our Fieldstone4U this month. In addition, they are pleased to be partnering with
Smart Small - Think Big
to launch a
Pro Bono Remote Legal Assistance Clinic for Nonprofits and Small Businesses
. By connecting Orange County community organizations and small business owners with volunteer attorneys through video or phone consultations, their goal is to assist in navigating legal issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through PLC’s remote clinic, nonprofit organizations and small business owners can get free brief legal advice on COVID-19 related legal issues, including CARES Act and other government economic relief programs, employment and staffing issues, meeting contractual obligations, insurance coverage and commercial lease matters.
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Great work is being done by
Amy Behrens
, Executive Director and
Kylie Travis
, Program Director at
Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens.
They have
created Live Virtually @ The Casa, an online cultural and arts escape for people at home waiting out the pandemic. Nearly every day, new Casa-specific content is posted for people to enjoy from the comfort of their homes on laptops, desktops, tablets, phones, or television sets connected to the Internet. The content provided includes a close-up look at the current
Who is Nellie Gail Moulton
?
art exhibit, virtual tours of Casa Romantica, live virtual interviews and classes, music and dance performances from Casa Romantica's video archives, interviews from Casa Romantica's archives, Spotify playlists, film lists and date night suggestions, interactive puzzles and activities for kids, and a suite of day-long and week-long lesson plans adapted from Casa Romantica's field trip curriculum.
Live Virtually @ The Casa can be found
here
.
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Kudos to
Cathy Seelig
, President & CEO of
Friendly Center.
At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, Friendly Center staff swiftly moved most of their programs and services for low-income families to be available to clients virtually; even the after-school tutoring program shifted quickly to be available to students via Zoom. When an influx of calls began coming in from families and seniors across Orange County struggling to fulfill their basic needs, staff began planning service delivery that would safely and effectively meet the growing need. Since the start of April, this has meant providing emergency food and household items by appointment at Friendly Center’s Orange location, mailing grocery store gift cards to those who lack transportation or are considered high-risk, hosting grab-and-go food distributions at Friendly Center’s Placentia location, and providing as much utility and rental assistance as possible.
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Great work, Meymuna Hussein-Cattan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of
The Tiyya Foundation
! The stimulus bill didn't allow for the one-time relief payment to be made to non-citizens, meaning a vast majority of their clients (80%) will not receive any financial support.
Many refugee clients are elderly and/or housebound with limited transportation options to get to the store. Tiyya, with their social enterprise,
Flavors from Af
a
r
, are providing delivery of pantry items to their clients and those in need throughout Orange County. They anticipate serving over 140 households every two weeks throughout the duration of this crisis.
Here's a
link
to a recent LA Magazine article that highlights their work.
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To see the interview, click
here
.
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Shout out to
Lisa Wood, Chief Executive Officer of
Casa Teresa for being featured on ABC News! Their mission is to provide pregnant women in crisis a loving home to begin their healing journey. They help families thrive through effective, caring residential programs.
To view the piece, click
here.
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Domestic violence doesn't go away in a pandemic - it increases. Thank you to
Maricela Rios-Faust
, CEO and her dedicated team at
Human Options,
who are working hard through this difficult time. Their team of bilingual legal advocates is available to walk survivors through the process of requesting a domestic violence restraining order, along with education. They are helping clients with education, direct services and referrals (including to pro bono attorneys) to meet their domestic violence legal needs. Services are available via phone, video chat or in-person, to meet the needs of the individual survivor. Human Options also operates a 24/7 hotline to provide support, education and referrals to survivors any time - day or night.
They were recently featured in the Daily Pilot- for the complete article, click
here
.
Maricela and many members of her team have participated in our Learning Groups, Coaching program and attended Fieldstone4U Zoom webinars.
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Welcome to
David Lugo
, the new CEO of
MOMS Orange County,
the county’s largest nonprofit dedicated solely to newborn and pregnancy health. Dave has been serving as the organization’s interim CEO since Pamela Pimentel, RN retired in February. He joined MOMS in 2017 as Chief Operations Officer, bringing an abundance of experience in all aspects of financial and general operations from his previous roles in nonprofit leadership across Southern California. David was the COO of Newport Beach-based ExplorOcean prior to joining MOMS Orange County.
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Congratulations to
LaVal Brewer
, the new Chief Executive Officer of
South County Outreach
.
LaVal brings more than three decades of experience in nonprofit management, with more than a decade of experience in executive and development roles. He was recently
Director of Business Development & Partnerships
of OneOC and served as Executive Director for Playworks Southern California and several YMCAs throughout Southern California. He is passionate about youth development, strengthening communities, volunteerism, and engaging for-profit organizations to address local issues. He is a trainer for California Volunteers and serves on the board of California Communications Access Foundation.
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Innovation at its finest...
The Muckenthaler Cultural Center
partnered with
Frida Cinema
in Santa Ana to bring a drive-in movie,
“The Princess Bride”
to The Muck’s grounds. Originally scheduled for May 23rd, it sold out in a little over a minute, so two more shows were added to the schedule!
They were featured on KCal 9/CBS Los Angeles News, click
here to see the great coverage they received.
Farrell Hirsch, CEO of the Muck, was a participant in our 2019
Executive Learning Group and recent panelist on a Fieldstone4U seminar
.
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Great work by
Kevin Mo-Wong
, Executive Director of
SOLIDARITY and his team. They
raised over $40,000 through a newly formed COVID-19
Neighborhood Relief Fund
.
100% of the donations supported families in desperate need. They received 96 applications and were able to help 51 families with a "stimulus check" from the Solidarity community.
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Leaders in the Field
is a monthly communication highlighting Fieldstone Leadership Network members and their
achievements in the community.
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We want to celebrate you!
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If you would like to share a personal or organizational accomplishment
in upcoming
Leaders in the Field
publications, please direct your email
here
.
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