Catholic Charities of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties

RIVERSIDE, CA -"Hope for Youth" was born in 2004 from a conversation between a grandmother who had recently taken over primary care of her two grandsons and the CEO Ken Sawa of Catholic Charities, San Bernardino/ Riverside. She was desperately trying to get her boys and some neighborhood kids on a Little League team so they might stay out of trouble and play baseball after school. However the team lacked a sponsorship so they couldn’t buy uniforms, with nowhere else to turn Jerri Villalpondo (an employee of Catholic Charities) took Sawa aside, "I need Catholic Charities help, and can you sponsor their baseball team? You have money . . . and I don't!"

Sawa realized then, that there thousands of local youth with tremendous potential who were growing up missing out on key experiences only because they lacked resources. “Typically Catholic Charities provides social services that respond to the suffering of the vulnerable and or in crisis. So this new program was a natural extension, we are trying to prevent something from being broken rather than repairing something after it is broke, and timing is everything for these youth.”

Kathie Neff, chairperson of the “Hope for Youth” committee, commented on the diversity of the program “We provide help in area’s not traditionally funded by non-profits, such as, “purchasing the sports uniform for the kid whose parents just informed him that they cannot afford baseball this year; by providing that second-year scholarship to keep a student on track with education; and by sending at-risk youths into the forest to learn the cycles of forest growth and the cycles of life.”

According to Kathy Cho, the Director of Youth Ministries for the Diocese of San Bernardino, commented on recent help by the “Hope for Youth, has been connecting students who are economically challenged with Youth Christian Leadership Training. This provides Christian leadership, positive role model and great potential in parish ministries. This year Catholic Charities sent sixteen students with HFY Scholarships to attend our Youth Christian Leadership Training at St. Anne in the Mountain, Running Springs.”

Our hope is to provide resources to augment a young person's natural gifts and talents; to help them to create their own healthy future. Our yearly "HOPE FOR YOUTH" dinner emerged from that conversation as an attempt to actively provide opportunities for young people who do not have the opportunity or resources to expand their natural gifts and talents.

Each year since then we gather generous and caring people at a fund raising dinner for the purpose of supporting youth through scholarships, leadership training, and skills development to help them create a successful future. These are youth who need our focus and attention - youth who depend on us to provide them what they need for healthy development. "HOPE FOR YOUTH" is about creating hope in our communities by providing a way toward hope for youth -- opportunities that maximize their potential and help them to shape a positive future for themselves.