Alliance Regional Solutions (ARS) keeps its coalition connected through the pandemic
Over the past 19 months, the Alliance for Regional Solutions (ARS) helped its 60+ member organizations remain connected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meetings quickly shifted to virtual formats ARS provided a place for nonprofit leaders and frontline workers to share resources, advice, and information. Meeting attendance even increased by 25%!
The Alliance has become an important resource for elected officials, as well as city and county staff, with members providing important information, feedback, and suggestions to move initiatives forward and best utilize stimulus funding to help North County.
The Racial Justice Committee conducted a Racial Justice, Equity and Inclusion Survey which garnered 518 responses. Results revealed a clear need and compelling opportunity for ARS to assist with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) education and training, particularly in response to emerging community and national incidents. ARS also partnered with Leichtag Foundation to create a DEI Resource Library for member organizations and the North County nonprofit community. Recent diversity trainings included:
- Trauma Informed Care Through the Lens of Racism
- Honoring Juneteenth
- Immigration Laws and Policies Enforcement Updates
- One Heritage, Many Voices of Cultura (culture)
Also, this past year, the North County Food Policy Council organized its fourth Annual Thanksgiving in August event, raising funds to provide turkeys for over 800 North County families.
Stacie and Jeff Cook understand commitment. They live it.
Black, Jewish and Queer. These three identities weave the fabric of who I am, but it took a long time to believe that they could exist together.
Lee and Toni Leichtag established the Leichtag Foundation in 1991 following the sale of their business. Lee and Toni were lifelong entrepreneurs with a passion for innovation and for supporting talent. They believed that only with big risk comes big reward. Both born to families in poverty, Toni to a single mother, they strongly believed in helping those most in need and most vulnerable in our community. While they supported many causes, their strongest support was for young children and the elderly, two demographics who particularly lack voice in our society.
Lifelong Baltimoreans, Rabbi George and Alison Wielechowski and their sons, 11-year-old Lennon and 9-year-old Gideon, are more than pursuing the good life in Southern California. Having moved to San Diego more than three years ago, they are fulfilling a lifelong dream.
You would think that as the executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride, Fernando Zweifach López Jr., who uses the pronoun they, has done all the coming out they possibly can. A queer, non-binary individual who has worked for many years on civil rights issues, López also speaks openly and often about their father’s family, Mexican-American migrant workers who tilled the fields of rural California.