BRITTANI HAMM | staff writer

The Canyon City Foundation awarded grants to four community organizations.

On Sept. 17, the Canyon City Foundation awarded grants to Our Neighborhood Homework House, the Azusa City Library, the Azusa Unified School District Mariachi after-school program and the YWCA Wings Program.

“Azusa Pacific University is deeply grateful for the Canyon City Foundation and all that it does for the city of Azusa,” manager of foundation and corporate relations Jessica Lee said.

For the second year, the board members of the Canyon City Foundation evaluated proposals submitted by non-profit organizations that requested extra funding for programs focused on serving the Azusa community beginning in the spring of 2007. The organizations were not required to be Azusa-based, but needed to show that the funding from the grant would ultimately benefit the Azusa community.

“There is a lot of focus on central L.A. and Pasadena,” executive director for Neighborhood Homework House Abigail Gaines said. “That’s the nice thing about the Canyon City Foundation: they are focused on Azusa.”

Of the funds awarded to Our Neighborhood Homework House, approximately $13,700 of the $25,000 grant was allocated to the parent resource center, while the remaining $11,300 was used for the program’s development capacity. The process will be two-fold.

“We want to identify people’s skills and strengths then deploy them into the community,” Gaines said. “First we discover [leaders], develop them through the parent resource center, and then deploy them.”

Last year, after a jewelry maker fixed one of the computers at the Homework House, he expressed his desire to work with computers. After some training, he was hired by the Homework House to teach the rest of the community in computer classes.

The Azusa City Library received the largest grant from the Foundation, which totaled $61,381. The Canyon City Foundation readily supported the vision of a mobile library that would reach out to Azusans who do not live in close enough proximity to the library to utilize its resources.

The Azusa City Library will purchase a van that will be transformed into a moving library using portable shelving.

“Our city has something called ‘city on the move.’ The mayor is really big on taking the council out into the city,” director of library services Albert Tovar said. “From there, I got the idea of a library on the move.”

Ten sites, including a clinic, park, daycare, mall, and housing for low-income residents will be visited every three weeks. For now, materials from the existing libraries will be used.

“We recruit a total of twenty-five volunteers, [some of which] will do story time at each site. That’s why the foundation liked this program. It builds community and is self-sustaining,” Tovar said.

The Mariachi Program, which was designed to introduce students from grades four through 12 to the Latino musical heritage by teaching them to play an instrument and read music, received grant money to be used for the continuation of the program. Students do not have to attend public school to participate, but they must live within the boundaries of the Azusa district.

Lastly, The YWCA Wings program received a grant for $5,000 that will be used for resources available to domestic violence victims. Its focus is to educate the surrounding community in order to prevent and, when necessary, intervene, in cases of domestic violence.

“One-fourth of the population will experience some form of domestic violence,” Community Outreach and Development Manager for YWCA-SGB Amanda Turek said. “Our ultimate goal is to help individuals break that cycle of violence and begin to heal.”

It is estimated that a minimum of twenty of the people that call the help line will be from Azusa, and at least another twenty will actually go to the clinic. The program is using their newly acquired funds for educational outreach programs.

“Our motto is to empower victims to make healthy decisions,” Turek said. “Education is focused on what domestic violence is, not advocating that people should leave their partner, but that they take should care of themselves.”