Thank You Capital One & This Great Video they Created about our Collaboration with Them!
The CLF is so grateful to Capital One, the incredible video team that Rick Reisdorf at Capital One put together along with his colleagues, including Kate Licht, and cannot thank the continued support of Aaron and Irving, as well as Martin, Winnie and the amazing crew at their Capital One Cafe in Santa Monica. They have been such amazing, key collaborators for our work, and also-incredibly great friends.
You can watch the video, below, and read the article from their site here, which is also excerpted below:
When Francesca McCaffery’s mom Maria began volunteering at a local homeless shelter in Central Los Angeles in the early 1990s, she met a boy looking at an amusement park brochure with avid interest. There was one issue: the boy couldn’t read.
“I can’t go to school because my mom can’t afford a physical,” the boy told her, a response that made her realize how the lack of resources could hold back a bright future. That encounter set in motion the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation (CLF), a nonprofit Maria created to offer free outdoor educational camps, domestic assistance, scholarship funds and college prep, and annual holiday programming for underserved, at-risk, homeless, low-income youth, teens, and parents in Southern California. Since 1993, the CLF has served more than 85,000 people.
Providing Hope for the Next Generation
In collaboration with Capital One, Francesca — now COO & Director Of Development at CLF — has held numerous events and workshops at the Capital One Café in Santa Monica. The Café has become a safe place for youth to discuss challenges and difficulties and where students get help with college essays and applications. And Capital One associates like Martin Rosado volunteer their time and help host events like a Mother’s Day workshop in 2019 to teach financial education to mothers. During the 2019 holiday season, the CLF turned Capital One Café’s community space into a magical Winter Wonderland where Santa showed up to surprise the children they serve.
“We are inspired by the work that Francesca and Maria do and just hit it off,” says Martin, noting that in a city like Santa Monica with high rent costs, Capital One was proud to be able to provide community space for such an incredible, important organization. “The CLF’s mission and values align so strongly with Capital One. We are excited to continue our partnership and support their invaluable mission.”
The strong show of support from Capital One associates like Martin and his colleague Winnie made Francesca feel like this is a “particularly memorable and unique” partnership that will last for a long time.
Beyond the Café walls, Capital One is finding ways to fill immediate community needs. In 2020, many U.S. Americans across the country are finding themselves facing unprecedented levels of housing and job insecurity due to the coronavirus pandemic. A University of Southern California study found that more than half of Los Angeles residents are unemployed, including both permanent and temporary layoffs. The survey found that people of color, especially African Americans, are more likely to have lost their jobs; and that job losses were more pronounced among women. Many of the CLF’s primary constituents are among those Angeleno residents facing urgent challenges that have uprooted their daily lives. Capital One helped by making a grant investment towards the organization’s Step Forward Emergency Family Fund. The fund goes towards many single parent household families, most of whom have two jobs, with basic necessities like food, rent, and bills.
“The Capital One team really cares and makes a specific effort to connect us with the Los Angeles-area community,” says Francesca. “It’s incredible how we’ve been able to impact the lives of Los Angeles families experiencing homelessness through our partnership.”