LA Family Housing Corp. has received a $15,000 grant from Northwestern Mutual as part of the company’s 2019 Community Service Awards, an annual program to recognize employee volunteers and provide funding to nonprofit organizations.
The North Hollywood organization helps people transition out of homelessness.
Garin Demirjian, an associate financial representative at Northwestern Mutual’s downtown Los Angeles office, led the company’s efforts to support LA Family Housing. The grant was presented to LA Family Housing in her name.
The grant money will be used to support the nonprofit’s outreach and engagement efforts, interim housing, permanent affordable housing, and “family days” where staff and volunteers host activities and connect with residents.
“(This grant) is hugely important and allows us to continue to work on this multi-pronged approach to combatting homelessness. Because of it, we can go above and beyond what our government grants provide,” said Hilary Mandel, LA Family Housing’s director of grants.
Northwestern Mutual Los Angeles began supporting the organization last year with a fundraiser leading up to a Christmas party on December 12. There, employees hung out with the center’s resident kids and helped facilitate arts and crafts stations, a snack booth and even a surprise visit from Santa Claus. The children’s parents were given holiday baskets containing blankets, toothbrushes and other daily essentials.
“In the walk to and from our garage, there’s frankly homeless people everywhere,” said Elizabeth Gilbert, a marketing specialist at Northwestern Mutual’s L.A. office. “We wanted to do something on the ground that would have an effect in our community.”
Northwestern Mutual officially presented the grant check to LA Family Housing at a family night on March 16 at the nonprofit’s family living center at 7817 Lankershim Blvd.
LA Family Housing was founded in 1983 and serves more than 7,300 people each year in the greater Los Angeles area.
Dignity Health Donation
Dignity Health Southern California, a coalition of six hospitals including two in the San Fernando Valley, made a supply donation to the Children of War Foundation ahead of the nonprofit’s upcoming medical mission trips to Jordan and Haiti. The hospital network rounded up three palates worth of medical supplies for donation to emergency rooms and health care centers in the countries.
Among the donated supplies were gowns, sutures, staples, needles, blood pressure units, drains, foley catheters and antibiotic ointment. The supplies were valued at roughly $15,000.
Children of War is an L.A.-based nonprofit that provides health care to children in impoverished or underrepresented communities. Members are traveling to Jordan April 20 to assist refugees and displaced children there.
“Jordan has over 1 million refugees, so the country is pretty strained. … There’s a huge need there,” Amel Najjar, Children of War Foundation’s founder and executive director, told the Business Journal.
She said the organization will go to Haiti once the political protests have ceased and the U.S. Embassy declares it safe for Americans to travel there.
“One of the biggest challenges for the people of Haiti is the lack of primary care physicians,” Dr. Nicholas Testa, chief medical officer with Dignity Health Southern California, said in a statement. “Dignity Health is focused on using the access we have to clinical resources to meet some of these needs for children in the smallest way.”
Donated supplies came not from the hospitals’ own stock, but from a purchase order made by Dignity Health.
Dignity Health Southern California comprises Valley-area hospitals Glendale Memorial Hospital and Northridge Hospital Medical Center, as well as California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles, Community Hospital of San Bernardino, St. Mary Medical Center and St. Bernardine Medical Center.
Wells Fargo Grants
Wells Fargo & Co. donated $17.8 million through 506 corporate grants in 2018 to support Los Angeles County nonprofits, many of which are based or have locations in the Valley.
In December 2018, Wells Fargo Foundation awarded a $500,000 grant to the Pacoima Initiative, a clean energy coalition consisting of the Los Angeles Business Council Institute, Pacoima Beautiful, GRID Alternatives, The Trust for Public Land, and the Los Angeles Conservation Corps. The grant will enable a rooftop solar paneling project in Sun Valley and Pacoima that is expected to create roughly 150 jobs and to generate $5 million or more in private investment.
Throughout the year, the foundation awarded grants of undisclosed value to Valley organizations including LA Family Housing, the Valley Economic Alliance, the Valley Economic Development Center, California State University – Northridge, the Youth Policy Institute, which has centers in Pacoima and San Fernando, and YMCA Metro LA, which has locations in Lancaster, Valencia, Van Nuys, North Hollywood and Reseda.
Staff Reporter Andrew Foerch can be reached at [email protected] or at (818) 316-3130.
