Nineteen local nonprofit organizations that serve the High Desert were given a boost when they received grants totaling $225,000.  The greatest number of grants went to programs that serve at-risk and low-income youth and their families. Grants for Meals on Wheels and food bank programs will help feed the hungry, while other programs serve the deaf community and other underserved residents of this region. The Willmas Charitable Trust was established in 2002 by the Willmas family, who wanted to leave a permanent legacy to benefit the Victor Valley communities and their residents. Anthony and Edna Willmas lived in Wisconsin early in their married life and migrated to California in the mid-1930s. The couple both worked, they lived modestly, and invested prudently. Upon retirement, the Willmases moved to Victorville, supported many local charitable causes, and laid the groundwork for establishing a trust in perpetuity to help fund needs in and around Victorville. The Trust became effective with the passing of Mrs. Edna Willmas in August 2002.

Adelanto Community Tool Box. The $15,000 grant will support a youth employment preparation/life skills enrichment program. The program is designed to meet the critical need within Adelanto for direct employment services for high-risk youth with limited skills. Over the next year the 12-month program will serve 50 to 55 young people ages 14 to 21. Participating youth will receive job readiness and retention skills training, life skills training, internship development and placement, and case management to help them find employment and stay in touch with them after they graduate.

The Community Tool Box, a program of Inland Agency, seeks to strengthen Adelanto by supporting community-driven projects that educate, advocate, inform, and organize its citizens of all ages. All services are offered free and are funded solely through grants and donations. The projects include the you employment preparation program; food distribution that provides groceries to 100 needy families per week; computer training classes taught by youth for people of all ages; a training program that teaches parents about healthy food choices, safe food handling, and stretching food dollars; and an outreach program that teaches about cardiovascular, breast, and cervical health.

Assistance League of Victor Valley. The $8,000 grant will provide new clothing, shoes, and hygiene items to 100 needy children. Each child will receive a warm jacket or coat, two pairs of new pants, two new shirts, six pairs of underwear, six pairs of socks, a hygiene kit, and a $12 shoe voucher.

The Assistance League of Victor Valley was founded in 1979 and provides services to meet the most pressing needs of the community. Their projects include Operation School Bell, which provides the clothing to needy children; and Operation Hug, which provides cuddly teddy bears to over 600 children each year at hospital emergency rooms. Additionally, they provided assault survivor kits to the Victor Valley Rape Crisis Center, which assists 500 to 700 victims each year, including children.

Boys and Girls Club of the Victor Valley. The $12,000 grant will provide supplies for art, recreation, and teen programs, and help pay for the instructors for their “Project Learn” program. For this project, staff use all areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for high-yield learning activities—these include leisure reading, writing, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework assistance and tutoring, games that develop cognitive skills, and incentives to reward Club members for positive academic participation.

The Boys and Girls Club’s mission is to inspire and empower all young people to reach their full potential as responsible, caring, and productive citizens. Currently they serve over 300 children throughout the High Desert, mostly in the north end of Adelanto. Nearly 70 percent of the families served receive some type of government assistance.

High Desert Mariachi Juvenil. The $10,000 grant will expand a program that targets at-risk and low income youth by providing them with musical instruction that not only keeps them off the streets but improves their academic performance. The program currently serves 25 children in 5th through 12th grades, from schools across the High Desert. With the grant the number of children served will be increased to 35. The curriculum includes music etiquette, instruction in playing instruments, vocal lessons, and learning 30 musical pieces. The grant money will be used to hire a part-time professional instructor, purchase additional uniforms, and update the sound equipment.

The High Desert Mariachi Juvenil is dedicated to the recognition and production of Mariachi music and folklore in the High Desert Region.

High Desert Meals on Wheels. The purpose of the Meals on Wheels program is to provide nutritious meals to seniors 60 years of age and older who are confined to their homes because of illness, accident, or age, so that they can remain independent and in their homes for as long as possible. Within a 30-mile radius of Victorville, the program serves 388 homebound seniors per day, 255 days a year. The $12,000 grant will help maintain the program’s services as costs increase due to rising gas and food prices.

High Desert Resource Network. The Network’s mission is to support and strengthen the nonprofit/public service sector in the High Desert through technical assistance, resource development, networking, and community education. It was formed in 1998 by a group of board members from various High Desert nonprofits, who saw the need to share information and provide resources beyond the scope of any one agency. They recognized that the nonprofit infrastructure in the region is unable to meet the increasing demand for services to address issues such as substance abuse, domestic violence, poor health, and school dropouts.

Over the past three years their list of local organizations has grown from about 200 to well over 1,000; they have held regular networking meetings, funding forum conferences, and workshops. The $15,000 grant will be used to support the networking and community education programs.

High Desert Youth Center. The $15,000 grant will be used to develop an after-school peer counseling and peer tutoring program for at-risk and low income students at the High Desert Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy is a charter school that shares the Youth Center facilities. The tutoring program would recruit potential youth counselors and provide training and ongoing supervision by using the expertise of a marriage and family counseling intern.

The Youth Center was established in 1993 to serve youth in the Victor Valley. Over 9,000 children and young adults have participated in a variety of programs over the last 13 years. Currently the Center provides after-school tutoring for elementary students, a youth and young adult boxing program, dance and music programs, and a 24-hour radio station.

New Life-Line Food Ministry. The life-line program was established in 2004 by the pastor and volunteers at New Life Chapel in Hesperia. Their mission is to provide food to those in need.  In 2005 the food pantry served a total of about 7,000 neighbors in the Hesperia area, and they served a total of 150 complete Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. The $10,000 grant will purchase food items to be given to those in needs, without restrictions, on an emergency basis. The pantry is open the last Saturday of the month, and church office staff also provide groceries to those who request assistance during the week.

San Bernardino County Museum Association—Museum on the Road. The Museum on the Road brings part of the Museum to classrooms and community centers so throughout the region—giving children and families a hands-on and up close look at animals, tools, fossils, and other specimens. For many of these children, this is their only exposure to the natural world. Over 9,000 residents attended programs in 37 schools and 12 community centers this past year. The programs included three different themes: Sea Life, Journey into Serrano Culture, and All About Insects. The $15,000 grant will be used to add to the specimen collection for the Sea Life and All About Bugs collections, which will increase the number of items for students to look at and hold.

Founded in 1952, the San Bernardino County Museum has grown to be the largest museum in inland Southern California, with more than 2.3 million items in is collections.

Senior Companion Program: City of San Bernardino. The Senior Companion Program’s mission is to provide opportunities to low income seniors to remain active in their communities and to remain in their own homes, maintaining their independence and dignity. The $15,000 grant will increase the services to include more clients in the Victorville area by recruiting and training four additional companions who would serve 16 clients each week. The services provided include companionship, reading, writing, meal preparation, grocery shopping, transportation to medical appointments, personal errands, etc.

The program was established 31 years ago by the City of San Bernardino and has grown from 40 to 70 companions serving clients in the Inland Empire, Victor Valley, and Morongo Basin.

Umbrella Latch Key Program. The program was founded in 1994 to provide a quality arts program where public school students could pursue their talents in the arts or music both during and after the school day, on and off school grounds. The program includes a wide range of arts—from drawing and painting to architecture, graphic design, and music and dance.
The $10,000 grant will buy additional supplies for a clay and sculpture studio at George Middle School, located on the former George Air Force Base. Last year the Latch Key Program provided programs at two sites, serving a total of 808 families.

Victor Valley Community Dental Service Program. The dental service program was founded in 1997 to provide oral health care to the unserved and the underserved populations of the High Desert. This program includes a four-chair dental clinic in an area of low-income residents. The clinic operates three days a week, serving 12 to 16 patients per day. The $15,000 grant will be used to upgrade and repair the equipment at the clinic.

Yucca Loma Family Center. The Family Center was established in 1996 at Yucca Loma School. The mission of the Family Center is to provide a safe, comfortable place for families to share concerns, enjoy time together, and expand their knowledge. Over the past few years the Center has developed a mentoring program, a resource center for families, after-school enrichment programs and special events, parenting classes, counseling, and social services.

The $10,000 grant will, among other things, be used to finish the development of a community garden and expand the neighborhood cleanup and outreach to two events instead of just one. This will include paying for food, supplies, outreach materials, and large trash bins for cleanup sites.

Benefit Everyone, Assist Recreation & Sports, Inc. The $9,000 grant will be used to develop a learning center at Hook Community Center and Hook Junior High School to support reading, writing, and homework skills of students and to increase family involvement in the education of their children. The majority of families in the area are low income. Benefit Everyone was incorporated in 2005 as an expansion of an earlier organization titled Benefit Ball Games, which originally formed in 1984 to support children’s recreation by providing bleachers, drinking fountains, and playground equipment for schools and parks.

Burning Bush Church Community Development Tutoring & Computer Learning Center. The Center is a technology-based learning facility that serves students, adults, and seniors. Their programs include after school tutoring, computer literacy and life skills, and computer literacy and technology training. The Center opened in 2001 and is available free of charge to the High Desert community. All the teachers are volunteers from area school districts. The $9,000 grant will purchase new computers and update the outdated ones.

Catholic Charities of San Bernardino/Riverside. The $15,000 grant will be used to provide emergency assistance to low-income residents of Lucerne Valley, a remote area where there is a lack of transportation and social services. The services funded by the grant will include emergency food, mortgage, rent, and utility assistance; transportation; prescription medicine; information and referral; and advocacy. Established in 1980, Catholic Charities provides low-income persons and those in crisis with critically necessary services, regardless of religious affiliation. Its programs serve both San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

High Desert Domestic Violence Program, Inc. The mission of the HDDVP is to assist and advocate for battered women and their children through shelter and outreach services. It has been serving the High Desert area since 1985, offering women and children affected by domestic violence with emergency shelter, assistance with relocation, peer-professional counseling, assistance with restraining orders, parenting classes, support at local courthouses, education, and child care. The $10,000 grant will provide the clients and their children with the financial literacy education that will empower them to become financially self-sufficient.

Mojave Deaf Services. The $10,000 grant will be used to create a new program to provide interpreting services in emergency medical situations for the deaf community. Dispatchers will be to be ready to provide services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at three High Desert medical facilities. These services will be provided free of charge to the client since most are low income. Mojave Deaf Services was founded in 1996 by Linda Hardy, the daughter of a deaf parent. They have five core services: communications assistance through liaison, telephone relay, or interpreting; advocacy; peer counseling; information and referral; and training for organizations that wish to learn about sign language or other aspects of hearing impairment.

Youth Empowerment Services (YES) Center. The YES Center was established in 2005 by a team of AmeriCorps*VISTAs (Volunteers in Service to America) in collaboration with the Foster Youth Services division of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Their mission is to provide services to foster youth to empower them to successfully emancipate into society as independent and stable young adults. They currently serve foster children ages 16 through 18. The Center works with each foster child to develop a comprehensive transition plan, then enrolls them in classes offered at the Center based on their individual needs. The YES Center offers a variety of classes including independent living skills, job training and preparation, parenting, anger management, substance abuse, computer and financial literacy, and others.

The $10,000 grant will help pay for follow-up services for emancipated youth, and classes that teach them about obtaining housing and employment, and completion of their GED or vocational educational alternatives.