Family Justice Community News- July 2014
Family Justice Community News
By Susun Kim, Executive Director (July 2014)
In July, we started our first cooking classes at the Family Justice Center. “Cooking Matters” is a free series of bilingual cooking and nutrition workshops designed to teach participants to shop smarter, make healthier choices and cook delicious meals. Founded in 1993, Cooking Matters is a nationally renowned program working to end childhood hunger. Like the Family Justice Center, Cooking Matters is a model of collaboration. It leverages the strengths of the national organization Share Our Strength and local partners.
We have 10 women and 1 man registered for the inaugural series of 6 weekly workshops, with a dozen more residents wait-listed. The Center provides child care, and the children of participants get to eat delicious meals prepared by their parents. In our June e-Newsletter, I shared our interest in promoting healthy eating and active living in our community. Cooking Matters complements our resilience-based approach and creates improved connections among our former clients and other residents.
Women Inspired to Grow and Succeed (WINGS)
Women Inspired to Grow and Succeed (WINGS) is the Center’s long-term safety program. With the goal of increasing self-sufficiency and leadership skills of our low income survivors, WINGS is built on a promising practices model based on the Allstate Foundation’s curriculum. We offer seven workshops on budgeting, debt management, goal setting, record keeping and financial literacy. Our first cohort of 10 graduates had a lot to say about the program:
- “I found this workshop very helpful and relevant to my needs.”
- “New goals, new ideas.”
- “I think this is a good thing for us.”
- “Program helps restore hope for the future and ways to plan and prepare for it.”
- “I felt the WINGS workshop was very informative, and would like to see more classes.”
We will offer our next series in English or Spanish in the fall. We also offer “train the trainer” workshops for those providers interested in incorporating the WINGS curriculum in their services. Thank you to STAND! for Families Free of Violence for their continued partnership in offering this program.
Thanks to Our Funders
We recently shared the great news about Kaiser Permanente’s support for the Center that took us one giant step closer to our permanent home in downtown Richmond. We also want to acknowledge Y&H Soda Foundation for their steadfast and committed partnership and The California Endowment for their encouragement of the Center’s community building work.
Most recently, the San Pablo Community Foundation joined the ranks to support our work in building a community free of violence. Just last week, we received our first check from AT&T for our WINGS program. We are grateful to our foundation and corporate partners and ask YOU to join our Peace Plaza campaign.