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 Letter from the President/CEO
...At the Heart of Being Kind to Ourselves
The holidays can be such a busy and stressful time for many of us, so it is especially important to find ways to pause amidst our celebrations, gift-giving and connecting with others to practice kindness and empathy toward ourselves as well.
Here are some articles with suggestions on taking care of yourself - and your mental health - during the holiday season:
Many of the suggestions in these articles are coping skills we now discuss with the first graders during our Operation Teddy Bear visits, with the children who drop off food donations for Food For Kids, and many of these will also be included in our new teen and parent education programs, especially since self-care is a protective factor leading to more resilience!
Will you join us, so we can ensure more youth and families practice empathy and self-care in 2020? Click here to make a year-end donation, and click here to learn more about Engaging Hearts and Minds, our new community-based program that combines our three new strategies with updates to our existing programs.
May we all remember to be kind to ourselves by practicing more self-care during the holidays and beyond,
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New Partnership with Herbalife
...At the Heart of Nutrition for Families in Need
We are proud to announce that we are now a Casa Herbalife partner! We recently celebrated our new partnership and Food For Kids program grant with team members from Herbalife and the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation, including Rob Levy, Herbalife's Executive Vice President of the Americas, and Jenny Perez, Executive Director of the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation.
"We're extremely proud to support the Volunteer Center and be able to help change the lives of even more people in need," Jenny Perez shared. "Our Casa Herbalife Nutrition program aims to instill good eating habits for children and families, so they may have a healthier future."
After the formal presentation, we demonstrated various ways the Food For Kids program and our donors make an impact on the local community. Our President/CEO Sara Myers led a discussion on empathy with youth from Believers' Victory International Church (BVIC), and Lorena Sandoval-Holt explained how her family recently gave back to Food For Kids.
The families from BVIC also held a food drive, and the Herbalife team worked side-by-side with them - bringing in the food, weighing it, sorting it and packing it into bags for the families we serve. It was a wonderful evening of generosity and compassion in the South Bay!
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A Warm Welcome for Urban Plates
...At the Heart of Connecting through Kindness
Our friends at Urban Plates opened their third location in our area this week! We were proud to be selected as the nonprofit partner to receive donations during the pre-opening weekends as we welcomed the restaurant to Torrance in August, Manhattan Beach in November, and now Long Beach. Thank you to everyone who joined us "at the heart of helping" as the staff prepared for each location's Grand Opening. We will be announcing the total donations from all three openings in January!
We hope you'll also help us serve more families by participating in Urban Plates' Good Is Served Social Media Challenge! Post about your kind acts on Instagram and/or Facebook with the tag "@UrbanPlates" and the hashtag "#GoodIsServed" through the end of December, and Urban Plates will donate a meal to some of the families we serve for each post (up to 500 meals).
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Spreading Cheer with Operation Teddy Bear
...At the Heart of Big Smiles and Bear Hugs
We are wrapping up our final school visits for Operation Teddy Bear's 25th anniversary year this week, and it's been another inspiring year of enthusiastic volunteers connecting with excited first graders and their grateful teachers. More than 4,000 underserved first graders at 42 schools in the South Bay, Los Angeles Harbor, Long Beach, Lennox and Compton learned about kindness, compassion, volunteering and identifying emotions from our amazing volunteers before the students were surprised with schoolbags filled with books, educational supplies and wellness tools and the teachers were surprised with bags of much-needed classroom supplies. The reactions were as priceless as ever! Click here to watch a video by our friends at the Port of Los Angeles to see some of those reactions and other great moments of volunteers connecting with the students.
None of this would've been possible without our amazing partners in the community who provide funding, in-kind donations, and of course, volunteers! Our program sponsors top that list, and they include the Affinity Group, John Deere Foundation, Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Los Angeles Trial Lawyers' Charities, Molina Foundation, Rudolph J. and Daphne A. Munzer Foundation, Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles, QuinStar Technology, Rotary Club of Manhattan Beach, Sandpipers Philanthropy Trust, Sares Regis Group, Valero Energy Foundation, Watson Land Company, Carl E. Wynn Foundation, and Whitney Young Children's Foundation.
We are also grateful to the volunteers who took the time to visit the schools, inspire the first graders and distribute the schoolbags, including representatives from the Affinity Group, Bank of America, Beacon House, California Water Service, GreenVetsLA, Herbalife Nutrition Foundation, John Deere, Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Los Angeles Trial Lawyers' Charities, Molina Foundation, Moog, Nonprofit Partnership, Port of Los Angeles, Rotary Club of Manhattan Beach, Sandpipers, Sares Regis Group, Simon Law Group, South Bay Junior Women's Club, Sun Chlorella USA, Torrance Refining Company, Valero, Watson Land Company, as well as several individual volunteers and members of our Board of Directors. Click here to see how volunteers truly make this program possible. Click here to learn more about Operation Teddy Bear and how our multi-faceted approach makes an impact on the local community. |
The Season of Giving
...At the Heart of Helping Others for the Holidays
We are extremely grateful to the members of our community who continue to show generosity and compassion by making donations to our Food For Kids program - we have been overwhelmed at the outpouring of support, accepting more than 7,500 pounds of food donations in the last month alone!
- The team at Advanced Orthopaedic Solutions donated 85 pounds of food.
- Esmeralda Babakhani once again donated food in memory of her son Ezra Alix Babakhani - 165 pounds total.
- The families at Believers' Victory International Church collected and donated 769 pounds of food.
- The City of Torrance's Community Development Department collected and donated 89 pounds of food.
- The employees and customers of Fidelity Investments in Torrance collected and donated 385 pounds of food.
- The members of Girl Scout Troop 71213 in Rancho Palos Verdes collected and donated 170 pounds of food.
- The Inner Empowerment Center and the Global Citizenship Committee at White & Case LLP donated 3,250 pounds of food, including 229 already-packed bags!
- Cathy Lifschultz once again donated food to our pantry - 85 pounds total.
- The Manhattan Beach Older Adult Program collected and donated 126 pounds of food.
- Members of the Old Torrance Neighborhood Association collected and donated 268 pounds of food as part of their annual Taste of Old Torrance event.
- The team at P-Lay Cards and Games in Long Beach donated 92 pounds of food.
- Richardson Middle School in Torrance collected and donated 1,056 pounds of food.
- Riviera Elementary School in Torrance collected and donated 192 pounds of food.
- The members of South Bay Divas All Start Gym collected and donated 890 pounds of food.
- The members of the South Bay Food Initiative at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach collected and donated 224 pounds of food.
Click here
to learn more about Food For Kids, including a downloadable copy of our Shelf-Stable Shopping List, and learn about the latest Food For Kids donations by following us on
Facebook
,
Instagram
and
Twitter
!
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A Friendly Reminder
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Image by @mental_health_doodles on Instagram.
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Featured Kindness Opportunities
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Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in Torrance
Wednesday, January 22
8:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Ken Miller Recreation Center
3341 Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA 90503
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is conducted over three days each year to gather information and understand the progress that is being made toward ending homelessness. This data is then used to bring needed services and housing to the South Bay.
All volunteers must be 18 or older and will be trained the night of the count.
Click here to sign up for the Torrance Count, and
click here to learn more about the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, including other regional opportunities.
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THANK YOU TO OUR MAJOR SPONSORS:
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The Volunteer Center
South Bay-Harbor-Long Beach
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Recognizing the value of empathy and service to others, the Volunteer Center has been "at the heart of helping" for more than 50 years. The heart of our mission lies in knowing the most urgent, local needs. We learn these needs by regularly listening to the members of our community. When we discover a critical need is going unmet, we lead the response by assembling a team of caring, talented volunteers to create signature programs, such as Operation Teddy Bear and Food For Kids, offering members of our community the opportunity to contribute to the solution. Click here to learn more about our new Youth Mental Health focus and how we're helping youth, families and the community gradually reduce screen time, while increasing face-to-face connections, empathy and resilience.
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