Inland Congregations United for Change Annual Report 2020 | ICUC

Annual Report 2020

“ICUC has grown beyond our dreams when we created it 30 years ago” - Rabbi Hillel Cohn

Our Mission

Inland Congregations United for Change is a faith-based 501(c) (3) non-profit community organization serving San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. ICUC empowers people of faith to transform and revitalize the Inland Empire by working in the civic arena for the common good.

CALIFORNIA

Through the PICO California Network, ICUC trains leaders and equips them with tools to fight racism and build a more equitable and just society.

As a statewide coalition we work across racial, economic, ethnic, and religious lines. We are comprised of 19 nonprofit organizations made up of 480 interfaith congregations, schools, and neighborhood institutions representing 450,000 families. We bring our local federations together throughout California to affect meaningful budget and policy change at the state level.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties PICO CA Network

NATIONAL Faith in Action Non-member

As part of our national network, Faith in Action, we organize people as the best way to address the spiritual and material crises facing our society. Our unity is the best tool we have for standing up to wealthy individuals and corporate interests profiting from racial and economic oppression and environmental destruction.

To create a new society based on equity, sustainability, and love we build strong multi-racial people-led organizations across the country that relentlessly press for social change.

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The Lord Raises Those Who Are Bowed Down A message from our board president and our executive director In January we hit the streets

running. Youth were following up on their successes to ensure that every student in Riverside, San Bernardino and the Coachella his year has been the most challenging year Valley has access to mental we have faced in our thirty-year history as an health care and counseling in organization. But it has also been one of the most their schools. They were planning productive and rewarding years of organizing and of a massive campaign to register working for more just communities. all of their peers to vote by changing voter registration We began the year with powerful organizing and with policies and practices in schools ambitious plans to engage and organize thousands in accordance with our statewide of grassroots community members to further our victories that got 16- 18 years mission to transform the Inland region by working in old eligible to register to vote. the civic arena for the common good.

We had well laid plans to lead

Kesha McGee & Tom Dolan T

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the largest effort ever to turn out voters in crucial elections that would impact our community’s key concerns of racial justice, immigrant rights, parent engagement in schools, police reform, addressing violence, creating good jobs, stopping the environmental crisis in our neighborhoods and others.

partnership with Loma Linda Hospital to create hospital-based violence prevention programs for families in the city with the 2nd highest rate of violence in the country was beginning implementation.

In the Coachella Valley our immigrant rights program had a growing

“A Stronghold in Times of Trouble” Our parents were organized, trained and experienced to lead efforts in three of the largest school districts in the region to continue to address policies, budgeting and local practices that keep decision making in the hands of the experts--who don’t look like us, live like us or understand our community like we do.

We had the capacity, the funding and the vision to lead efforts that would prepare parents to help their children navigate through the school systems that have often helped recreate poverty, racial disparities and low expectations for our kids.

partnership with thirteen new congregations and we were reaching thousands of immigrant families every week. We had thirty new youth organizers and dozens of parents engaged in organizing. We also had a new organizing program with the Purépecha community.

In San Bernardino our organizing and partnerships had allowed us to tackle systems of policing that had resulted in generations of high rates of violence, homicides, incarceration and community disintegration.

The violence intervention program we had worked on for ten years was funded, functioning and beginning to see positive results. Our

In February we began to invest in digital organizing tools and to train staff and our leaders to engage our community virtually as well as how to carry out our inperson organizing safely.

In Riverside we had youth organizing in six congregations and five schools and we had recently hired a team of ten new youth organizers.

We also had hired a clergy organizer to help expand our congregational team.

demand that the district cancel in-person classes.

Since then our faith, our love for one another and our organizing have carried us forward. Our scripture teaches us that “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” This took on new meaning for us when we mourned the passing of Fr. Francisco, Deacon Baltazar and many others in our organization.

The following pages account for our many successes in organizing this year.

The challenge of the pandemic, the closure of our congregations and our schools where our organizing is rooted, and the seemingly insurmountable losses suffered by our already oppressed community have certainly impacted our organizing. But the Lord raises those who are bowed down. This is the message we would like everyone to hear about our work in this difficult year.

We carried out our last traditional action in early March when students and parents attended the SBCUSD board meeting to |

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Leadership Development 500

LEADERS TRAINED

250

TRAINING EVENTS

45,000 NEW VOTERS

ICUC builds transformational leadership that impacts our individual members and the systems that they live in. For ICUC leadership is a process not a character trait that is monopolized by individual leaders. For this reason, we spend hundreds of hours engaging our grassroots leaders with recognized systems leaders. Only by building collective power and navigating relationships can we dismantle power structures that sustain oppressive systems and help transform communities. In 2020, our success is seen in both the number of persons who participated in our programs and by the changes we made to systems that exclude oppressed communities from civic participation.

We develop leadership within disenfranchised parents, youth and immigrant communities.

“ICUC has shown me that community problem solving isn’t only for adults. ICUC has also given me the opportunity to make new friends from different parts of the city and network with community stakeholders.”

-Angel Orozco, San Bernardino

Civic Engagement Civic Engagement

This year ICUC parent and youth leaders hosted more than 590 meetings with local, regional, state and national officials to press for community interests on policies that impact voting rights, policing, mental health, education, violence, housing, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, COVID-19 relief, and racial justice. These meeting help us impact policies and also build relationships that help us build partnerships that advance the interests of students and parents.

These meetings included:

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National Leaders •

State Senator Harris

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Congressmen Takano, Ruiz, Aguilar

State Legislators •

State Senators Roth, Leyva, Melendez (staff) and Ochoa Bogh • Assemblymembers Gomez Reyes, Cervantes, Rodriguez, Garcia, Ramos (staff) and Medina

School Board Members •

Rodgers, Medina, Wyatt, Hill, Ceballos, Flores, Gallo, Tillman (SBCUSD)

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Porras (DSUSD Board President)

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Acuna, Paz, Arredondo, Galarza- Toledo, Vargas, Hall (CVUSD)

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•

Farooq, Lock Dawson, Allavie (RUSD)

•

Vega (AUSD)

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COACHELLA VALLEY - RIVERSIDE - SAN BERNARDINO

2020 // MOVING FORWARD

67

Meetings with decision-makers:

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County Officials

11

City Officials

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•

• •

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SB ROV- Bob Page, Riverside ROVRebecca Spencer, R Co. Board of Supervisors - M. Perez, SB Co. Board of Sup.- J. Baca, Jr.

Melendez, Lock Dawson, Plasencia (Riverside City), Ibarra, Reynoso, Calvin, Alexander, Valdivia (SB City), Hernadez, Beaman Jacinto, Galarza (Coachella City) Patricia Lock Dawson (Riverside) Gaby Plascencia (Riverside)

School Staff •

Dr. Hansen, Hall, Deets, Cisneros (RUSD), Principals Bishop, Fulcher, Gutierrez, Clark, Raymundo (SBCUSD)

•

Rodriguez, Monarez, Volkkemer, Gonzalez, Butler, Clyde, Paige, Wandrie, Peteres, Magdaleno, Mejia (SBCUSD) |

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Voter Engagement

Voter Engagement

In 2020 ICUC continued our efforts to engage new and infrequent voters of color in our region. Teams of our youth leaders in Riverside, San Bernardino and the Coachella Valley helped pass new policies in school districts that make it easier for youth to register to vote and to exercise their rights as voters. We carried out events across the region to make voting an expression of our struggle for racial and economic justice. And we made use of technology to text, call and turnout voters in one of the largest voter engagement efforts ever in our region. Some of our principal successes are listed below.

• “Be the Vote, Engage in the Vote” virtual event (October, 69 youth): Youth leaders organized and hosted an event with workshops on voter registration, every proposition on the 2020 ballot, and selfcare activities.

• Virtual candidate forums (October, SB City Council, SBCUSD, CVUSD, CV): ICUC youth leaders hosted virtual forums to ask candidates questions and provide the community with additional information before voting.

• “Cast Your Vote” drive-thru concert (November, 301 participants): ICUC youth leaders organized a drive-thru concert to invite the community to register to vote.

• Phone Banking (September-November) Youth leaders spoke directly with 45,409 new and infrequent young voters in the Inland Empire to remind them to vote (Source: PDI).

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Contacted

45,409

new and infrequent young voters

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Transforming Schools

Youth-supported Policy Proposals Passed: Accessibility to the polls through pre-registration at schools • Student Voter Registration Policy, San Bernardino City Unified School District (Approved September 2020) • Resolution Encouraging School District Participation in California High School Voter Education Weeks, Alvord Unified School District (Approved September 2020) • Resolution Recognizing California High School Voter Education Weeks, Riverside Unified School District (Approved September 2020) • 2020 California High School Voter Education Week, Coachella Valley Unified School District (Approved September 2020) 10

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Communities that Count

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Census Work

An accurate counting in the 2020 Census would guarantee that local communities receive their fair share of resources and have their voices heard. To this end, ICUC (pre-COVID) outreach consisted of in-person signature collection (petitioning)—committing 5,935 people to fill out the Census— and Census outreach events that engaged 38,813 people. Post-COVID efforts included virtual petition commitments of 18,674 people, online posts viewed by 25,769 people, and Census information shared over radio stations that 7,000 people tuned in to. Overall, these efforts led to a total of 96,191 contacts (Source: Amplify).

96,191

Census Contacts

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Communities Impacted by Violence

San Bernardino Common Ground for Peace Violence is a serious, long-standing problem in San Bernardino.

ICUC clergy, parents, and youth leaders have been working on the issue of violence for over 15 years, recently through the SB Common Ground for Peace leaders have been able to make progress on lowering gun violence through a community driven public safety program commonly called Ceasefire in other cities but named Violence Intervention Program (VIP) in San Bernardino. They have advocated for this through Prayer walks, public comments, and town halls.

The Violence Intervention Program (VIP) that has been advocated for by SB Common Ground for Peace organizers is a solution that changes the optics of San Bernardino’s policing from one of oppression to one of community and belonging.

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Leaders advocated for over $600,000 in city funds to pay for the VIP program.

Violence Intervention Program (VIP)

The Ceasefire (Violence Intervention Program) strategy is a unique partnership between clergy and community members, law enforcement agencies and service providers focused on sending a clear message to a carefully selected set of young men who have been identified through a data-driven process as the drivers of violence in specific communities. Community members and outreach workers reach out and connect these young men, who are most at risk of either being a victim or perpetrator of gun violence with the services they need to put their guns down.

230 Program Participants -11% Gang Motivated Homicides Source: VIP Annual Report 2019 -2020

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Parent Organizing

K-12 Parent Engagement & School Readiness Parent organizers partner with the San Bernardino City Unified School District (SBCUSD), the Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), the Student Success Center at California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB), San Bernardino County Nutritional Services, Vision and Compromiso, Giving 365, Giving Children Hope, the San Bernardino and Riverside county San Bernardino Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and Walden Family Services to provide parent workshops that train parents how to access support services for school readiness and how to navigate the education system to ensure their children are prepared for college and careers.

Our parent organizing starts with parents with pre-school children who learn how to help prepare their children for school readiness and how to act as advocates for their children so that they gain access to programs that support school readiness.

In elementary and middle schools ICUC parents lead organizing efforts in the children’s schools and at the district and state level. Parents participate in training on community organizing and in a program of 16 trainings that ICUC developed over the past ten years with input from parents and district and other partners.

This year our parents led successful efforts to support families impacted by COVID-19, helped engage thousands of parents who were disconnected from schools and helped inform district policies about school closures, learning recovery programs, and ongoing support for families. As part of our statewide network parents are working with districts to leverage funds at the district level from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund that will mean more than $200 million in funding for local school districts in our region.

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20,000 450 128 16 12

Families Engaged Parent Leaders Parent-led Trainings Congregations Schools |

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Immigrant Organizing

Engaging Immigrant Leaders The past year was crucial for community organizing with our immigrant families across the Inland region. Much of our work with youth and parents was carried by immigrant youth and adults. In addition, we focused efforts organizing with families in the Coachella Valley. Because of the importance of the November elections, the impact of the pandemic on essential workers and ongoing attacks on immigrants, ICUC youth, parents and leaders of the Purepecha community dedicated important resources to raising the voice and the organizing of immigrant leaders in ICUC. Our activities included outreach in congregations, schools and the fields, obtaining free legal services for families, partnerships with local media, Know Your Rights training, phone banking and canvassing and COVID relief efforts.

50,000

Immigrants Engaged

30,000

Know Your Rights Cards Distributed

500 Immigrant Leaders Trained 18

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Mutual Aid

COVID Relief

In response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in our communities, ICUC congregations and leaders partnered with local distributors, businesses and funders to secure and distribute donations of food and masks to families affected by job loss and the health impacts of the pandemic. In our efforts, ICUC youth and parent organizers exercised untiring commitment and leadership. We connected our relief efforts to ongoing organizing to engage more community members in our work to address the underlying conditions that have made the impacts so much more severe in communities where poverty and discrimination go hand in hand. Much of our work was carried out in Mecca and was led by Fr. Francisco Valdovinos. Father Francisco passed away as the result of COVID on January 17, 2021. Francisco was a pastor and an organizer in heart and spirit. His loving spirit will guide our organizing for generations to come.

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Total Volunteers Distributing Relief

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Congregations

430, 000

Pounds of Food Distributed

200,000

Masks Distributed

A Place for Community

IE Center for Community Organizing In early 2020 we signed a two year lease agreement for a large building in San Bernardino. Organizers and leaders went to work revitalizing the once dilapidated building. Now called the Inland Empire Center for Community Organizing, the space is filled with partner organizations including CHORDS Youth Enrichment Program, Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ICIJ), the Warehouse Workers Resource Center (WWRC), San Bernardino Generation Now (SBGN) and IE Prism Collective (IEPC). We’ve held training, phone banks, food drives, concerts and workshops all in regulation with state covid mandates. As more are vaccinated we are excited to expand capacity and utilize the space to its fullest potential. The grand opening of the center will be October 2nd, 2021.

1,050+ Visitors

7 Community Events

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Our Financials Expenses 16%

Admin

2%

82%

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Programs

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Fundraising

$3.3 Million Raised

85%

of revenue spent directly on programs

Revenue 2%

Religious Institutions

1%

Corporations

1% 4%

District Contracts

Fe e s fo r S e r v i ce s

33%

Fo u n d a t i o n s

59%

Government Grants

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Our Team

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Tom Dolan Executive Director Regionwide

Cristina Ruiz Office Manager Regionwide

Michael Segura Communications Regionwide

Cristian Flores Housing Organizer San Bernardino

Ben Reynoso Economic Organizer San Bernardino

Reyes Lopez Organizer Coachella Valley

Erika Ruiz Youth Organizer San Bernardino

Ayla Lopez Youth Organizer Riverside

Monica Galvez Youth Organizer Coachella Valley

Kesha McGee Parent Organizer San Bernardino

Beatriz Loera Parent Organizer San Bernardino

Norma Mejía Parent Organizer San Bernardino

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Sergio Luna Lead Organizer Regionwide

Rocio Ruiz-Chen Lead Organizer Regionwide

Adam Wedeking Organizer Riverside

Kelvin Ward Organizer San Bernardino

Miguel Rivera Youth Projects Lead Regionwide

Hakan Jackson Human Resources Regionwide

Rocio Aguayo Data Analyst Regionwide

Gaby Cruz Youth Projects Lead Regionwide

Elizabeth Romero Parent Organizer San Bernardino

Amelida Yanez Parent Organizer San Bernardino

Mariela Trujillo Interpreter Regionwide |

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Our Board SAN BERNARDINO Kesha McGee PRESIDENT Life Center Church Dawn Thomas VICE PRESIDENT Cathedral of Praise Church Angela Cardenas San Bernardino Valley College Ada Trujillo Richardson Middle School Parent Beatriz Loera Our Lady of Hope Church Gernaro Waheed Sahaba Initiative Natalie Salcido Cajon High School

RIVERSIDE Lucia Gaitan TREASURER Our Lady of Perpetual Hope Church Adam Wedeking UU Church

COACHELLA VALLEY

Monica Galvez Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Mecca Francisco Sanchez Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Mecca Otilia Zavela Our Lady of Soledad Church, Coachella

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Designed by : Michael Segura

We Thank You!

Our appreciation to the funders who have supported our work in the community over the past 30 years: The California Endowment The James Irvine Foundation The California Wellness Foundation The Weingart Foundation The Catholic Campaign for Human Development The Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Foundation The Inland Empire Community Foundation The RAP Foundation The Needmor Foundation PICO California Faith in Action The San Bernardino Unified School District The Tides Foundation Unical Aviation The California Department of Social Services The Fund for An Inclusive California The Inland Empire Funders Alliance The New Venture Fund Power California The S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation Reach Out The San Bernardino City Unified School District YO Cali

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