COMMUNITY SERVICES TEAM

Team Chair: Judy Leitner

The Community Services Team helps serve the San Diego Community through a few different projects.

• Concert in the Park: The annual Cinco de Mayo Concert in the Park is held every May in Balboa Park which showcases the SDSU School of Music and Dance students. Our club provides a gift to assist in scholarships and career grants that are competitively awarded to gifted students in need of funding. The concert is free and has been organized by our team for more than 20 years.

• Most Inspirational Football Player Award: Our club has had a long association with the Holiday Bowl. In 2002, Drue Jordan began a program to recognize local football players, not for their achievements on the field as much as their achievements in being an inspiration for their teammates to do their best. Our club awards the “patch” and certificate that is given to each athlete nominated to wear.

• Meals Team: This group coordinates one of the Club’s service projects in which members volunteer to serve meals and provide good cheer to the clients of area organizations. We provide meals to the USO: disadvantaged populations such as military wives and their children; Ronald McDonald House of San Diego: parents and siblings of seriously ill children who are patients at Rady’s Childrens Hospital; Monarch School: homeless children and their parents who attend Monarch school (Holiday period, includes gifts to students)

• MLK Freedom from Hunger Food Drive: our club is one of the co-sponsors for the annual MLK Freedom From Hunger High School ASB Food Drive Challenge. Last year’s food drive raised more than 30,000 pounds of food for the San Diego Food Bank. The winning school is announced at the annual Laurels for Leaders luncheon.

Events

Holiday Dinner @ Monarch School

Holiday Bowl – Inspirational Athlete Award

Laurels for Leaders/Food Drive

Serve Dinner @ USO

Concert in the Park

Serve Dinner @ Ronald McDonald House

YOUTH SERVICES TEAM

Team Chair: Karina Sousa + Monica Ball

The Youth Services team provides support to many organizations in the San Diego that are all focused on youth.

Organizations that are supported through this team:

• Boys to Men - Project: our club has supported Boys to Men in a variety of ways over the years. This year we are helping to construct a lodging and working space facility. They will construct a Yurt that will enable the organization to host 40 peers, campers and 15 mentors during an Adventure Mountain Weekend in Palomar Mountain, CA.

• Boy's and Girl's Club of Greater San Diego - Project: with the Boys + Girls Club, we help provide daily 30-minute fitness activities/Healthy Lifestyle Educational Programs. As well as teen programming for 6-12 grader – career launch college and career prep/job shadows and college visits

• Burn Institute - Project: “Fire Safe Kids,” Burn Institute’s fire and burn prevention program for 1,500 children grades kindergarten through sixth. All youth are at-risk of fire and burn injury if they don’t know how to project themselves. Each day over 300 youth are treated in emergency rooms for burn-related injuries and two children die from their injuries.

• Uplift - Project: Support Kids at Heart and Swimming Upstream. Kids at Heart is one-on-one tutoring with the same student each week during the school year. Tutors provide accountability, homework assistance, and fun while learning! Swimming Upstream is Year round mentorship for young women grades 7-12 in addition to a 15 week program that develops leadership skills and encourages positive life choices.

• Ronald McDonald House - Project: help 30 families with children stay at the Ronald McDonald House for 10 nights each (300 nights). Families experiencing a pediatric medical crisis are often in financial distress, and they struggle to make the suggested $20 contribution towards the full $168 cost of each night of lodging and meals.

• Salvation Army - Project: provide scholarships for 10 low-income children to attend Salvation Army’s residential camp, Pine Summit, located in Big Bear for a week. Children will participate in activities that will help address their mental, social, physical and spiritual needs such as swimming, hiking, archery, paint ball, ropes courses, arts & crafts, dancing, playing musical instruments, and singing that help develop attributes such as cooperation, respect, self-esteem, independence and leadership skills.

• Star Pal - Project: Annual STAR/PAL Fishing Derby, Get Elevated Boot Camp, Outdoor Enrichment Program, Annual Surf Clinic

• San Diego Food Bank - Project: Food 4 Kids Backpack Program – an annual program that provides weekend bags of nutritious and child-friendly food to 1,730 chronically hungry children at 37 sites throughout the county, a 5% increase from the year before. It costs the Food Bank $200 to feed one child for the school year. Our club supports 25 children.