Just Communities Central Coast

June 30th, 2019


"We're gonna take back this state and take back this country"  
- Eric Early, the Los Angeles attorney representing Fair Education Santa Barbara (Noozhawk, 4/8/19)


This is the latest language Fair Education Santa Barbara is using to describe Just Communities and the justification for their lawsuits against us and the Santa Barbara Unified School District.  These words reveal why our work is so critical and why we need your support now more than ever. Fair Education Santa Barbara is trying to force us out of the Santa Barbara Unified School District and pressure other school districts and organizations not to work with us.  As the saying goes, “We must be doing something right, if we’re receiving all this attention,” but it comes at a cost.  

We have been serving the Central Coast for 18 years, creating waves of change within individuals, institutions, and systems.  We could have scaled back our work and taken time to simply respond to this attack in the face of these lawsuits, their Fox News media blitz, threatening phone calls and emails, and more.  But we haven’t.  Instead, we have chosen to continue investing in building our capacity so that we can continue our vital work, even as we respond to this new reality.

The cost of adding additional staff, working with consultants, investing in a security system for our office, and more has reached close to $6,000 a month since December 2018, which we estimate reaching a total of more than $43,000 by the end of June.   

We did not plan to be sued, but this is the cost of doing cutting edge work that creates real change.

Fair Education Santa Barbara’s lawsuits and criticism of our work is not about what’s best for our schools or what's best for all students.  It's not about education or fairness. It's about two competing visions for the future of our community and nation: theirs is a vision of moving backwards to a time when our nation and our schools worked only for some.  Ours is a vision of moving forward to a time when our nation and our schools work for all. Ours is a vision of a future in which the founding creed of this nation - liberty and justice for ALL - is no longer simply a set of words, but the daily practice of every school, every organization, and every community.

As someone who shares our vision, you have the power to help ensure our schools and communities continue to move forward, protect student access to diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum in Santa Barbara Unified School District.  Your support will ensure a strong scholarship pool for our CommUnity Leadership Institute (CLI) this summer; assist in funding our second annual Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE) program; help us launch a new initiative to engage Central Coast nonprofit organizations and foundations in addressing issues of diversity, equity and inclusion; and sustain our efforts to provide implicit bias training to the Santa Barbara Police Department.  You can help us do all of this and so much more.

The McCune Foundation and our Board of Directors have made contributions that demonstrate their faith in our work, and the Santa Barbara Unified School District has now twice voted unanimously to continue their contract with us.   We ask you to join them by donating today, to further our life changing programs, and help us meet our goal of $43,000 by August 31st, 2019.

Again, many thanks for your support, it means the world to us.  The issues we’re working on aren’t going away tomorrow, because of this, we aren’t either.


Sincerely,

Jarrod Schwartz                    
Executive Director 

Visit our website to learn more about Just Communities: www.just-communities.org 



More information about Just Communities Central Coast: Just Communities offers cultural competency training to organizational leaders, education seminars for the general public, leadership training institutes for students and teachers, and customized consultation to local agencies for diversity and organizational change initiatives. Just Communities consciously works with people from a diverse cross-section of the community along the lines of race, income, gender, sexual orientation, age, and religious affiliation.

Donations of any size, great or small, are so appreciated!


The Cause
Traveling abroad has the power to open students' minds in a way that cultivates the empathy and global-thinking that is critical for our community. For the past 5 years Kim Tilton, a Santa Barbara public high school science teacher, has been leading educational travel programs in her community. Unfortunately, the costs of these programs continue to rise and there are always students and families that simply cannot afford the costs of their travel. We are asking the community for support in providing scholarships for student programs  ; programs that are well-rounded and are designed to include elements of scientific, historical and cultural learning paired with community service and outreach.
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62thaiTOi-I


Teaming Up Locally
This year we have teamed up with a local non-profit organization called Just Communities to create a fund that will be used to award travel scholarships for underprivileged students in our local community. In addition this partnership allows supporters to make tax deductible donations. 

Candidates
Recipients for the scholarships will be chosen based on their financial need, involvement in school, community service and personal commitment to fundraising for their trip. Each family has committed to personally funding 1/3 of their total trip cost, and in addition each student has committed to participating in several local fundraisers to raise money for a rural village school they will be working with while abroad.

The Trip
Our trip this year will be taking us to Peru, the ancient city of Cusco and the awe-inspiring ruins of Machu Picchu where we will spend 10 days learning about the Ancient Incas, Spanish colonialism and visiting local communities and villages to interact with the vibrant and diverse Peruvian culture.

Request for Donation
Please consider donating to our scholarship fund. All donations are tax deductible and any scholarship funds that are not used within this year will be saved and put towards the next year's cohort. Our fundraising goal of $10,000 would allow 5 students with financial need to join our trip this summer!

Just Communities
Just Communities works to provide multiple programs that are focused on social justice, diversity and equity work to ensure all members of our Santa Barbara community have a voice and are valued.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration of our cause.

Take a look at some of our pictures from previous year's adventures!
Lauren and Jess enjoying a laugh in the mist of a Poas Volcano National Park
Doing our part to restore San Juan - La Selva Biolological Corridor in Costa Rica. 
School visit, a little shy but they warmed up to us when we met them out on soccer field!
Ms. Tilton learns to milk a cow at a local family owned dairy in the hills of Monteverde.
Supporting a local indigenuous family that is still producing chocolate using ancient traditional methods. 
Playing in the Topiary Tunnel of Zarcero, Costa Rica
On the edge of the very active Poas Volcano and learning about the unique geography of Costa Rica. Learning about the traditional oxe cart methods of bringing coffee down from the highlands.