The Project Access Mission

Project Access creates opportunities for the empowerment of low-income individuals and families, living in affordable housing communities, to achieve greater self-sufficiency and independence through access to education, health and human services. 

Halloween at Warwick Square

Staff News

A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LANE MACY

Unbelievably, this month I celebrate my one-year anniversary with Project Access. Without a doubt, the year has been the most rewarding of my professional career to date. This past year Project Access has undergone tremendous change, and the staff have not wavered in their efforts to increase the number and quality of services available to the residents of the low-income housing communities we serve. Our holistic approach to addressing the education, health and social service needs of the entire family is very important to those communities. Although working, many of the residents are living on the edge of poverty and need all the support they can get to ensure that they are optimizing resources available to them and can continue to work toward a life of self sufficiency.

Over the past year, Project Access has added five new sites, making a total of eleven learning and resource centers in Southern California – expanding our reach in the city of Anaheim and new to the cities of La Habra, Buena Park and Torrance. Anticipating continued expansion, Project Access corporate staff has been putting in place an infrastructure to support the human resources, fundraising, risk management and program development needs of each of our learning centers and outreach sites. We have also spent time continuing to develop relationships in the business community, which help bring leadership and resources to Project Access for the ultimate long term benefit of our clients. We have added new board leadership, and launched an Advisory Committee to support specific projects. In addition, our auxiliary, “PATRONS for Project Access,” is well underway cultivating friends of Project Access and launching the inaugural Holiday Adopt-a-Family Program.

We continue to refine our business model, which is to partner with property owners of affordable housing apartment complexes and contract to provide services to residents through a fee-for-service arrangement. To complement this financial commitment by the property owners, we are seeking a match of community dollars. Our success is also made possible by dedicated partnerships developed with hospitals, nonprofit and community-based organizations, and schools that allow us to leverage financial commitments with the services provided by experts in specific core areas. Ultimately, this allows us to offer a very comprehensive array of services to residents who reside at these apartment communities. Finally, each of our staff is bilingual, speaking the language of the dominant resident population of each property, and they continue to take on considerable responsibility in coordinating partners and services, and outreaching to the residents. Through a partnership with YMCA of Orange County and California State University, at Fullerton, we have expanded our staff of 20 full and part-time to include 18 AmeriCorps Members who tutor and provide physical and character education on a part-time basis. Our staff are the backbone of our operation – and are responsible for our recent growth and incredible success. I thank them for their dedication and commitment to building better communities and for helping us to expand our reach to other communities.

NEW DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Hillary H. Niblo, formerly the Executive Director of Taco Bell Foundation, has been named the Development Director for Project Access. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Junior League of Orange County as Community Director, and was honored with both the Junior League’s Spirit of the League award in 1999, and its Board of Directors award in 2000. Ms. Niblo received a BFA in Art History from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Certificate in Financial Management for Non-Profit Organizations from Cal State University Fullerton. 

NEW BOARD MEMBERS

Project Access has welcomed two new members to its Board of Directors:

Larry Leaman served as the Director of the Orange County Social Services Agency for 21 years -- leading 3,700 employees in providing an array of social services, including child protection, child welfare, and child abuse prevention. During this time, he played a key role in the development of 19 family resource centers in Orange County, at which families at risk are strengthened through community-based family support and prevention services. In 2003, Mr. Leaman received national recognition for his work when he was presented with the National Child Abuse Prevention award by the Federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families. 

David M. Salazar, a veteran marketer with more than 20 years of healthcare industry experience, most recently served with Andersen Jones Partners, as a principal and as the agency’s Vice President of Client Services. Previously, he was General Manager for San Mateo-based Siebel Medical, and he has held various sales, marketing and general management positions for industry-leading companies such as Baxter Healthcare, Sigvaris, Respironics and Procter & Gamble. Mr. Salazar holds a B.S. Degree in Marketing Management from San Diego State University and has completed strategy courses at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon Universities. 

Helping Kids and Families Is Important To Us All:
A message from Larry Leaman, member of the Project Access Board of Directors

I retired in 2003 as the Director of Social Services for the County of Orange. During my 23 years in that job I learned many things, but the most important thing I learned is that if we help kids and families grow and be successful we will have fewer problems in our society in the long run. As a society, we can choose to wait for family dysfunction --- such as child abuse or domestic violence or juvenile delinquency --- and then intervene with the force of law enforcement or remedial education, trying to repair the damage. Or, we can support kids and families and prevent the need for that kind of damage control. I know that prevention through family support programs and services works. It works for kids, families and most important of all, it works for our communities. 

There are many factors that add stress to a home: unemployment; substance abuse; domestic violence; poor health and poor health habits; neighborhood factors such as crime, graffiti and violence. All of these stress factors make the challenge of raising children today bigger then ever. Kids exposed to these kinds of factors stand a poorer chance of being successful in school, of being motivated and happy. Instead, they face a stronger likelihood of failure, turning to juvenile crime and delinquency, becoming a teen parent, and even winding up in prison as an adult. If children and their families can be helped to cope with issues like these as they occur, before they are in crisis, lives can literally be saved. Kids can grow up healthy, happy, safe and ready to learn at school. They are more likely to set positive goals and become responsible adults themselves later on.

So, picture two communities. In one, all the stress factors are dominant, the children are raised without a strong positive adult role model, they have health problems, they see domestic violence, there is considerable crime around them, and there is no one working to help kids and families. The other community is safe, healthy, the children and their families learn and play together and there is community pride and people help each other. Which community would you want to live in? Naturally, the answer is the safe, healthy community, where kids are cared for, encouraged to learn and grow, have access to health care and other services because people are working to support and help families. A safe and healthy community.

The reason I have joined the Board of Project Access is because I believe strongly in helping create safe and healthy communities that support families. I believe in the work that Project Access does because it helps kids and their families and because the family support services it makes available will help make for healthier, safer and stronger communities for us all to live in. I look forward to being a part of the Project Access effort to support and strengthen families and communities.

Partnership News

AMERICORPS PARTNERSHIP EXPANDED

Pursuant to its collaboration with the YMCA and Cal State Fullerton, Project Access has benefited from the services of 18 AmeriCorps members for the 2004-2005 season. These members, each of whom will devote 450 service hours during the year, will help to tutor children in grades K – 9, promote character building and physical activity, as well as assist with volunteer recruitment at the Project Access learning centers at Tara Village, North Hills, Warwick Square, Cypress Villa, and Malabar.

COUNSELING PROGRAM LAUNCHED

Through a new partnership with the Living Success Center (LSC), free on-site counseling services are now available to the residents of the Warwick Square apartments during the coming year. Serving the community since 1994, Living Success Center is a counseling center serving Orange County that provides therapy, education and support groups for individuals, couples, children and families, regardless of their ability to pay. LSC will offer their professional counseling services with the goal of promoting the mental and emotional health of the Warwick Square residents. Thank you Living Success Center for collaborating with Project Access on this wonderful pilot program!

WELLS FARGO PARTNERSHIP INAUGURATED 

Pursuant to a program through which a portion of its loan consulting fees is donated to charitable organizations, Wells Fargo has made a $1,200 donation to Project Access. The check was presented to Project Access Board Chairman Jonathan Webb by Wells Fargo’s Tom Gorla , and the exchange, which took place during a recent staff meeting on a casual Friday, was the occasion of an impromptu photograph featuring Project Access management and Service Coordinators. THANK YOU Wells Fargo – your support is much appreciated. We hope this is the beginning of a long, successful relationship!

Wells Fargo presents a donation to Project Access

INFO LINK COLLABORATION

Through an arrangement funded by the Orange County Children and Families Commission, Project Access and InfoLink Orange County have accomplished the modification of InfoLink’s searchable database of social service providers in Orange County. This modification will enable Project Access Service Coordinators and other program partners to make better use of the Internet-based directory of service providers in addressing the health care needs of residents served through Project Access’ learning centers. Another great example of successful community collaboration!

PATRONS AUXILIARY ESTABLISHED

With the help of volunteer Honeybee Hyatt, our first auxiliary support group has been formed. It is called P.A.T.R.O.N.S., which stands for Project Access Tenant Resources and On-site Neighborhood Support. The group’s goals are to provide volunteer resources, cultivate in-kind donations, and assist with fundraising through events and a membership program, and they are already off and running! An inaugural event for potential leaders and volunteers was held at the home of Honeybee and Mark Hyatt in Newport Coast. Although the event was not “technically” a fundraiser, the evening generated nearly $8,500 in cash and in-kind donations for Project Access – Thank you, PATRONS!! 

Please e-mail us at PATRONS@project-access.org for information on joining this illustrious group – all are welcome. 

PATRONS Rebecca Finney, Honeybee Hyatt, and Kristine Barker 

Prospective PATRONS Deanne Droegemueller, Kelli Schott, and Kellie Newcombe

Programs and Location News

HOLIDAY ADOPT-A-FAMILY PROGRAM

As the season of giving approaches, it is with great excitement that the P.A.T.R.O.N.S. has begun their first Holiday Adopt-a-Family Program. Applications are available to adopt a family residing at a local low income housing community served by Project Access. These are working families who struggle daily to pay rent, keep their loved ones safe and healthy, and improve their lives. Through the generous support of PATRONS and their friends and colleagues, families in need will receive the greatest gift of all this holiday season: hope and encouragement. The program was designed with flexibility to match different levels of participation, in hopes it will appeal to individuals, families, groups of friends as well as businesses. Each adoptive family will also complete an application in order to be matched them up with a P.A.T.R.O.N.S benefactor. As such, the levels of participation are: 

1. Purchase gifts for the children and one for the entire family on your own;
2. Contribute funds and the members of P.A.T.R.O.N.S. will purchase gifts for the family on your behalf; or
3. Contribute a donation and we will match you with others to adopt a family as a group.

Anyone interested in adopting a family this season, please contact the Director of Development, Hillary Niblo at (949)253-6200 x305 or hniblo@project-access.org. Applications must be received by Nov. 10th.

SUMMER CAMP A SUCCESS

Thirty children from five Project Access learning centers had a wonderful time at Camp Nawakwa at Angeles Oaks, sponsored by grants from Foundation for Social Resources and the Montclair Council of Campfire USA. One additional camper from the Project Access Learning Center at Tara Village was also able to participate, fully sponsored by Campfire USA in honor of his having been profiled by the LA Times in its summer camp campaign.




PEPSI AND LA GALAXY CREATE SOCCER PROS AT EMERALD GARDENS

Thanks to new friends of Project Access, after school on Friday, October 15th, youth from the Project Access Emerald Gardens Learning Center in Buena Park were given a special once in a lifetime opportunity. The generosity of the Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) and Marisa Perez, an employee of PBG as well as one of our rising P.A.T.R.O.N. leaders, enabled approximately 25 kids to enjoy a soccer clinic sponsored by the professional LA Galaxy soccer team and two of its star players, Scot Thompson and Chris Aloisi. To start, each child was given his/her own LA Galaxy soccer ball to use during the hour long clinic and to take home. The players divided the kids into two groups, and taught them specific tips for dribbling, kicking and scoring! Then the two groups played a game against one another with personal coaching from the professionals, as well as some sideline tips from a few parents who had come to watch the fun. After the clinic, Pepsi served beverages to the crowd while the players autographed the balls and posed for photos with the kids. The day winded down with more games and prizes from the Pepsi team. This was a fabulous opportunity that brought big smiles to the faces of those who participated. SPECIAL THANKS to PEPSI and LA GALAXY for a memorable afternoon!! 

How You Can Help

If you believe in the goals of Project Access, and would like to help the less fortunate in Orange County, tax deductible financial and in-kind donations to Project Access are kindly appreciated throughout the year. 

Please contact the Development Director, Hillary Niblo, at (949) 253-6200 x305 to discuss the current needs of the organization, or make checks payable to Project Access, Inc., and mail to:

Project Access, Inc.
Attn: Hillary Niblo, Development Director
4029 Westerly Place, Suite 113
Newport Beach, CA 92660. 

Thank you for your support.

The Project Access E-Newsletter is an online publication of Project Access, a  nonprofit organization that brings together affordable housing providers and community service agencies to offer residents the resources needed to enhance the quality of their lives.

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