Everychild Celebrates 10th Year with Another $1 Million Grant

By Michael Aushenker, Staff Writer

2010-05-06
The Pacific Palisades-based Everychild Foundation commemorated its 10th anniversary on April 29 by awarding $1 million to the South Bay Center for Counseling's Career Pathway Program, a jobs program that will serve 300 at-risk youth in Los Angeles.'

  'Our event [at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel] was a wonderful convening of members, spouses, and our grantees to celebrate all that we have accomplished in the last decade,' founder Jacqueline Caster told the Palisadian-Post. 'We were thrilled to be joined by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other city and county officials, who acknowledged the impact we have had with $8 million in grants that have served over 350,000 children in Los Angeles.'

  The evening was emceed by members Patricia Heaton and Monica Rosenthal, co-stars of 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' along with Lew Schneider, the show's writer/ producer and the husband of an Everychild member.

  In addition to the Palisades, the Foundation's membership is comprised of 225 prominent women from Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Malibu, Brentwood, the South Bay and San Fernando Valley.

  Each woman donates $5,000 in annual dues in lieu of putting on fundraising events, and the group votes on which nonprofit organization to support with a $1-million grant each spring.

  It all began in 1999 when Caster recruited 56 women, including her Highlands neighbors, Cynthia Alexander and Debra Colbert, to join her unique humanitarian project. Their first grant of $230,000 was awarded to QueensCare to help outfit a new mobile dental clinic serving students in low-income elementary schools within LAUSD.

  Every year since, Everychild has invited roughly 30 to 50 nonprofit organizations to apply for its single annual grant. The women devote their energies, intellect, education, talents and professional skills toward the rigorous grant-selection process, vetting each proposal and then voting on the ultimate winner: a nonprofit that serves children and has proposed a new, innovative 'dream' project that can inspire replication, thus leveraging the dollars for maximum impact.

  In 2007, for example, Everychild singled out Heart of Los Angeles Youth, a multicultural center that offers fine arts, athletic and education programs for more than 1,300 underserved youth annually throughout the city. The grant money was used to transform Lafayette Park Community Center, located in the blighted Rampart District, into a safe, enriching haven for about 2,300 at-risk neighborhood children.

  Everychild's 2008 donation went to the Mar Vista Family Center''a grassroots agency serving a low-income, densely populated and gang-ridden neighborhood adjacent to the only federal housing project in West Los Angeles. The money was earmarked to create a new Youth Center for about 1,000 kids.

  The foundation's philanthropic model has created a new prototype for leveraged giving, among women and beyond, both in the U.S. and abroad. To date, the organization has directly inspired multiple spin-off groups: four in Los Angeles (with three currently forming), two in Santa Barbara, one in Las Vegas, one in New York City and two in London.

For more details, visit everychildfoundation.org.