El Arte Barbershop is a family owned establishment that has served the South LA community for over 40 years. Continuing the family business alongside his father, Roberto Sanchez has worked hard to keep El Arte in South LA, something important to Sanchez, as the barbershop has served the Latino community in the neighborhood for decades. Despite the reopening for the restaurant businesses here in Los Angeles, barbershops are among the types of businesses that have only recently been allowed to reopen.
The stagnation in business during this time almost put El Arte Barbershop at risk of being evicted. When Roberto got the notice that his barbershop would be a recipient of an LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant, he was able to keep his business from getting evicted, upgrade equipment and make repairs to the shop and make sure El Arte Barbershop would be able to reopen safely when the restriction was lifted by putting money towards making his business in compliance with the new COVID-19 safety standards.
“Through most of the 80’s and 90’s we’ve been a staple of the community,” Sanchez said. “I’d like to express my deep appreciation for this help. My livelihood had been at risk and the grant minimized that risk.”
Los Angeles Music and Art School, an East Los Angeles cornerstone in arts education for 75 years, has provided more than 2 million lessons to 100,000 students. The school started as a settlement home in the 1940’s, but has always stayed true to its mission: to provide the community of East LA with equitable access to multidisciplinary arts education programs and offer opportunities for underserved youth. Kathleen Jequinto, a development and events associate, said that they’re here to create programs for immigrant families—just like they did for those fleeing during the Jewish Diaspora more than half a century ago. Since May this year, LA Music and Art School has been partaking in online learning, and their team spoke to each and every student to ensure they would be able to attend.
The school usually serves 530 students a week, but today, is only able to serve about half of that. Despite the challenges to retain students who are unable to transition to online learning, Jequinto said that the grant they received from the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund is helping them continue employing their teachers and helping them reach new students past the standard two-mile radius. LA Music and Art’s main focus is to spread the grant throughout the community to those who face a disadvantage at their school, and innovation is more important than ever to serve their community. Their staff is performing remotely to inspire their kids to maintain their love of the arts. The funds have already and will continue to help them sustain their programs, including support to 37 teaching artists who create virtual lesson plans and curriculum that will be implemented through December 2020.
Jequinto says that with support from the LA Regional COVID-19 Fund and strategic planning, the school has been able to stay open and reach more students. She encourages other organizations in similar situations to apply.
A professional and classically trained musician, Leah Paul taught music for 20 years before she started her own business, Sweet Potato Music, nearly three years ago. Her music classes have become popular in the East LA community, providing families with relief and enrichment through music. Having experienced a good flow of business, Paul was planning to expand her operations to the Westside and hire her first employee back in December 2019. However, COVID-19 suddenly brought everything to a halt. Unlike many businesses, Leah Paul was lucky—she was able to move her business online to continue operating during the shutdown. However, with the amount of widely available musical resources online, Paul was forced to cut her class prices by 20% to stand out and stay competitive.
This became an issue for her family’s financial security, as her husband’s career was among the affected industries put on hold due to the pandemic. When Leah received her grant from the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund, she was able to supplement her payroll, replace equipment to meet the latest COVID-19 safety protocols and invest in innovative ideas to boost Sweet Potato Music’s presence and popularity in its new online environment. With the financial aid the grant provided for Paul’s business, she has since been able to host a number of small, socially-distanced outdoor classes, which she says has been really helpful—many parents have told her these classes are the first thing they’ve been able to do with their kids in months.
“The grant gave me breathing room to get what I needed to change direction. There are still so many unknowns that I can’t relax, but I feel like I have enough structure in place that I will be able to get through this,” Leah Paul said. “Even before COVID I felt like what I did was important. But now I am not just providing an education, but a community.”
The People of Change is a non-profit that is serving the neighborhoods within South Los Angeles, with an emphasis on community building and youth mentorship. Led by Dimitrio Jones, the People of Change team has spearheaded a variety of community initiatives that pair professionals and community leaders with the youth, build new businesses through capacity-building community effort, and pair volunteers with homeless residents to build ongoing relationships. One of their programs, H.I.P, brings hands-on learning and a passion for science to urban and underserved communities, encouraging children to pursue science-related fields.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the People of Change to halt many of their in-person activities at schools and churches, impacting nearly 500 students who could no longer access their services. Now, the program has shifted to a virtual summer program via Zoom to bring students interactive and immersive learning from home—with speakers like scientists behind the space shuttle that delivered a rover on Mars. With the help of the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant, the organization can continue to impact children all over South Central Los Angeles who depend on their services and programming to be inspired, influenced and exposed to the STEM field programming.
“The grant has definitely helped to create science packets, without it I was sincerely thinking about postponing the program until the pandemic ended and we could afford it,” Dimitrios Jones said. “Over the summer we made 50 individual packs of materials and instructions for experiments.”
For OLASTEO, they believe creating empowering experiences for students can serve as a catalyst for social change. The non-profit serves the Watts community in South Los Angeles, inspiring students to expand their world view and give back to their communities. Aaron Friedman, President and co-founder of OLASTEO, has spent the last five years curating interactive workshops, immersive trips, and powerful speakers for their youth scholars. Given the challenges of COVID-19, Friedman worked to expand their virtual programming through their very first OLASTEO Speaker Series.
Friedman says the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant OLASTEO received will help fund the series for the next nine months, featuring ten impactful speakers for the community. The grant additionally helped them fund their recent Summer Virtual Experience, a two-day event with virtual guest-speakers and educational sessions. Now, the grant is supporting their operations and marketing efforts to directly expand their organization’s presence in Los Angeles. As a newer organization in South Los Angeles, the grant gives OLASTEO and Friedman hope that major grantmakers will recognize their dedicated work in the community—starting with the successes following their LA Regional COVID-19 Fund grant.
“We are a relatively new organization with huge dreams and aspirations—thinking globally and acting locally,” said Friedman. “Years from now, when we’ve impacted hundreds, perhaps thousands of students, funded in significant part by grant money, we will never forget the one grant that got it all started.”
Silvia Chavez runs her family restaurant La Lupita, which has served the East LA community for almost 30 years. When COVID-19 hit Los Angeles County back in March, Silvia was forced to close the restaurant under the countywide shutdown. With her business closed, bills began to pile up and Chavez was unable to pay rent on her restaurant. Even as restaurants were allowed to reopen, La Lupita had no parking or space they could use to host outdoor dining and they were struggling to get by on takeout orders. During these hard times, things got harder for Silvia—she contracted COVID-19 and was forced to close the restaurant. What money she had left started going to getting the care she needed as she battled both the coronavirus and a case of pneumonia. The building owner began applying pressure to La Lupita and Silvia, threatening to get a new tenant, when she discovered the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund. The $5,000 grant she received helped her catch up on her rent and bills for the restaurant. While Silvia is still recovering from her health scare, she is hoping to be able to reopen La Lupita soon.
iJoy Lash Lounge was forced to close their doors twice due to COVID-19. The small cosmetic beauty enhancement business only had three days of notice before shutting down their first time due to heightened business restrictions, though they were booked through the end of the year. Tiffany Roberts spent her days searching for financial assistance, unsure when they would be allowed to reopen since the business did not fall under similar categories as hair salons or other personal care services. After applying to various financial aid programs like the Paycheck Protection Program and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program, Roberts was able to briefly reopen iJoy Lash Lounge.
She had to purchase personal protection equipment as a part of the City and County’s COVID-19 safety protocols,, yet her business was to be closed yet again during the summer. Roberts is currently still waiting to hear from city officials if she can reopen her business, but the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant has allowed her to keep up with rent so far. In adapting to the challenges of the pandemic, Roberts is launching a product line that can transition her business into a pandemic-proof source of income.
“The grant has given me the opportunity to keep my business during the current shutdown. I was forced to close my doors for a second time in July, and without this grant, I would not have been able to keep up with the rent,” Roberts added. “Now, I will be able to have a business to re-open once given the green light.”
Ellen Shane has endured a hardship that very few others have ever had nor will ever have to experience: the murder of her 13-year old daughter, Emily, in 2010. However, this tragic event eventually led Ellen Shane to found and lead a non-profit charity organization, dedicated towards providing individualized mentorship and academic tutoring to disadvantaged middle school students within Los Angeles and Ventura county—the Emily Shane Foundation. The Foundation’s mission was going well until the pandemic hit, when it forced Shane to cancel the Foundation’s annual fundraiser, leaving them in a critical budgetary situation for finishing the school year and with uncertainties of commencing the next academic term.
When Shane applied for the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund grant, she did so in hopes of being able to keep the Emily Shane Foundation’s flagship program, Successful Educational Achievement (SEA), running. The program, Shane explains, provides academic and personal support to those who may not be able to afford the resources to succeed. The only cost to students is to implement the Foundation’s motto “Pass It Forward”, in which students must perform a good deed for others and share it with the Foundation. And in that same “Pass It Forward” fashion, when Shane became a grant recipient, she immediately dedicated the entire grant to their SEA program to keep serving as many students as they can, during a time when it’s more important than ever to keep students from falling behind.
“It is truly a much needed lifeline to our continuing to serve children here in LA,” said Ellen Shane. “The need for what we do is greatly magnified due to virtual learning.”
California Families in Focus(CFF), a Long Beach based education non-profit, runs a program for high school scholars—Visionaries Inspiring Purpose. For Maria Macias, CEO and co-founder of CFF, she hopes to go beyond just using social service programs and innovative events to empower high students and their families. She also has a vision to build a thriving, proactive and healthy community. When the pandemic hit, Macias and her team quickly shifted gears to provide vital support for youth and families, seniors and the disabled, single mothers, the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants. This crisis led Macias to look for more funding for her non-profit because she knew that these vulnerable groups needed more help now, which led her to the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund. Weathering COVID-19 required the community coming together to help one another and with the financial help from the grant, Macias, her CFF team, and other committed Long Beach volunteers were able to provide “Safer at Home Love Kits”—which will include personal hygiene products, PPE, food, gift cards, and personalized notes—to thousands of people in their community.
“The COVID pandemic may have taken our freedom but it did not take the courageous and generous spirit of our members,” Macia said. “CFF feels honored and proud to be able to meet the needs of thousands of our community members through our combined COVID relief efforts.”