Give a Latte Smiles and Toys during the Holidays to Children and Families at Hillsides

The amount of support we receive from the community at this time of year is very gratifying and is a big help in creating a memorable holiday season for all those we serve. All this is accomplished because of the tireless efforts of so many individuals, families, employees, volunteers, businesses, organizations, and churches.


Before we all get caught up in the whirlwind of activity, let me just say thank you to all of you who give generously to the children and families we serve and who work so hard to make this season so special at Hillsides.


To start off the holiday season, Starbucks stores in Pasadena, La Canada, Sierra Madre, La Crescenta, Los Feliz, Eagle Rock, Glendale and Sunland have found a way to reach customers and appeal to their hearts. Starbucks stores are hosting in-store promotional bins and posters for Hillsides, encouraging customers to donate holiday gifts beginning Friday, December 2.

Likewise, one local autogroup is spreading holiday cheer and bringing joy while simultaneously helping us fulfill holiday wishes for vulnerable children and families.  With the generous support from RUSNAK Auto Group, children served by our charity will be treated to special toys donated by caring patrons and the local auto group dealerships in Pasadena and Arcadia.


The Parkway Grill, Arroyo Chophouse, and Café 140 South in Pasadena displays Hillsides holiday trees with special wish tags for their customers to pick up. Businesses like these in our community make the holidays so much more meaningful for those we serve. 


Besides toy drives, businesses, individuals, schools and organizations adopt families for the holidays. We have a hundred families that participate in our adopt-a-family program during the holiday. These are families that have the greatest need. Coming together to help us give the extras like gifts, holiday decorations and meals enable us to recreate and continue traditions that are meaningful in childhood and to families. 


By fulfilling special wishes, we are able to give our children and families a few extras to help restore hope in a brighter new year. For this, we could not do it alone. I want to thank you for your generous heart and compassionate spirit. 

Thanks and Giving

National Charity League Pasadena Chapter

One of the things that I learned a long time ago is that you just can not say thank you enough. So let me take this year's Thanksgiving celebration to say, once again, thank you! Let there be no doubt that without the extraordinary support that Hillsides receives from our donor community, our ability to impact the lives of all we serve would be significantly compromised.

Without your generous support we would not be able to bring the library to life with storytelling and live music on a regular basis. Without your support we would not have been able to sponsor our students on a three-day magical camping trip to Catalina. Without your support holiday celebrations would not be marked by games, gifts and fun for one and all. The list of how your support makes a difference is endless. Like the many parents who I met on campus recently and told me how grateful they are for the care we offer their children, I say thank you.

In assisting us to provide so much for those we serve, you offer an extraordinary gift whose impact is made more significant because of how vulnerable they are. It is the gift of hope. For the mother at her wits’ end with an adolescent who is depressed and withdrawn, hope is knowing that her child feels comfortable in school for the first time in years. For the eight year old angry about being removed from her home, hope is when she finally gets her favorite toy and is able to laugh and run with abandon. For the lonely adolescent who has aimlessly moved from one foster home to another, hope is when he lands that first job and opens a savings account. Your support helps us to rebuild confidence, revive joy and restore hope. Thank you!

Be sure to know that on this Thanksgiving your generous support of our mission is at the top of our list of reasons to be grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Reason to be proud…

Folks often ask me how we measure success for the children and youth we serve. Certainly we can point to any number of outcomes or achievements that demonstrate improvement whether it be in their emotional well-being, social skills or educational performance. But the true measure is ultimately expressed in the success of each and every individual we serve. The challenges that are addressed must never be underestimated and as a result their achievement is made only more remarkable.

Recently Thomas Lee, the director of Hillsides’ transitional housing and services, Youth Moving On, shared with all staff the remarkable story of one of our residents. What follows is Thomas’ presentation of Victor a young man who all of us are very proud.

Just over a year ago, Victor was an undocumented immigrant living at Optimist Homes, in need of housing and a path that wouldn’t jeopardize his probation and the attendant likelihood of deportation hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles.  He applied to Youth Moving On (YMO) for housing and services and was accepted because he only had six months more of probation which would then determine his ability to obtain residency.  All he had was a high school diploma and a fire in his eye that said: “All I want is a chance.”

Victor joined the YMO program and promptly began an internship at one of our best sites: A4 (a team sports and athletic apparel company).  While in the internship, he improved his English, business math, and job seeking skills.  He also enrolled full-time into Pasadena City College and started working toward his associate’s degree. 

Within six months, he gained his residency, helped co-found the Indigenous Peeple Clothing Company, and was hired and given full employment by A4. 

With all those accomplishments, Victor didn’t stand pat.  He travelled to Le Blanc, France with YMO’s internship abroad program, saved over $8000, and was honored by Optimist Homes, Michaela Pereira from KTLA Channel 5 Morning News, and given a commendation by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe. 

Through it all, Vic has remained humble and hungry for more.  He’s successfully completed his first year of college and is continually looking for more opportunities to make the most of his time at YMO. 

We measure success for Victor and all we serve when they can stand on their own, full of confidence and claim a hopeful future.

This Time of Year

On my commute to work every morning I pass a makeshift sign attached to an overpass that states, “22% of children in the U.S. live in poverty.” As if traffic was not bad enough, the drive also confronts me with some of the stark realities of life in 2011. The fact is that depending on how you look at the childhood poverty issue, the number is anywhere from 17% - 35% of children in the U.S. are impacted by poverty.

The recent economic down turn has only exacerbated the situation. I suggest that poverty is perhaps the greatest contributing factor to the fracture of families, jeopardizing the well-being of children in many ways. Poverty is a sad and tragic reality that is hard to comprehend and often is understated. We see the result of poverty every day in the children and families we serve at Hillsides.

As we get ready for the holiday season, this is the time for us to reach out to our donors and supporters to ask for your help to provide food and gifts for all the children, youth and families we serve. Especially during this time of financial challenges, your assistance can make the difference to provide a happy holiday season for everyone we serve. Your donation helps to ease the anxiety of many families who, with very limited resources, none-the-less attempt to provide a happy and memorable holiday for their children. Please find more information on how and what you might be able to do to make the holidays a wonderful celebration for these very vulnerable children and families.  

I urge you to consider what you might be able to do now. This is a busy season with many distractions and we can easily put this off until much later in the season.

As you know, we can never do enough for those we serve--even more reason then for us to do our best. It makes such a difference, especially at a time of historic economic challenges, for the children and families we serve to be supported by each of us.

Thanks for all you do.

Whatever It Takes

Recently, the Hillsides' administrative staff received an e-mail from Susanne Crummey, our longtime associate executive director, with an extraordinary request for assistance regarding the guardian of one our residents. This young man has been at Hillsides for several months and the plan is to transition him to his godmother who is prepared to become his long-term guardian. One of the challenges with the plan is helping his godmother to become more financially stable. This would be especially important once she welcomed this youth into her household. So the request was to see if we could identify a part-time job for this woman in order for her to be more confident about assuming this great responsibility.

I share this with you because it is a good example of the approach that we take when facilitating services--we do whatever it takes to best serve the children, youth and families in our care. In this case, it meant conducting a job search; at other times it means identifying housing or providing food. We are committed to doing anything we can to help the children and families we serve be successful.

This is very consistent with what emerged from a recent planning session where we identified the top three characteristics of the organization. Listed first was, "a culture of service," clearly evident in our extraordinary attempts to help this guardian find a part-time job.

Related to this is a yet another characteristic and that is being innovative. Whether it be the establishment of the Hillsides Education Center, thirty years ago, the development of a wide range of community-based services, the creation of Youth Moving On or participation in the pilot program to integrate residential and community-based services for the most challenging youth, Hillsides has been an innovator that has consistently striven to provide the best care possible.

And all this ties in with the third characteristic: advocacy. For us, advocacy is not limited to monitoring and weighing in on public policy and legislation, it is also intimately linked with all we do for each child, youth and family we serve.

These three characteristics, service, innovation and advocacy,  indicate not only who we are but also serve as a standard that we value and we plan to develop even more as we plan to be an ever effective organization.