2008 PARISH JUSTICE AWARDS

St. Bede the Venerable Church, La Canada:
St. Bede the Venerable Parish Community is striving to recognize the presence of Christ in each person. They are blessed to have the following ministries:

---"Brothers' Helpers" and "Skidettes" that provide 1,850 meals a week to the homeless on the streets of L.A., or more than 96,000 meals a year.

---The Justice and Peace Ministry that holds forums on current issues and an Alternative Gift Market.

---The Christmas Adopt a Family Program serving inner city parishes.

---Sister parish relationships with Sts. Odilia, Columbkille and Nativity Churches and a newly established partnership with the Diocese of Wain Ghana, Africa.

St. Louis of France Church, La Puente:
St. Louis of France is an ethnically diverse parish community and their outreach to the needy is intense and very diverse, and includes:

---Levantate y Anda: A group that reaches out to troubled youth, feeds the homeless on weekends and has an Evangelization Radio Program.

---Love in Action: A Christian Service Ministry that assists the homeless, food for the poor, Thanksgiving Day Baskets, and financial assistance.

---Bilingual Mass and other outreaches for those incarcerated and for the victims of crime.

---Support for persons or families living with HIV/AIDS.

Holy Family Church, Artesia:
Holy Family Church takes its commitment to justice and the poor seriously. Their parish community has:

---An active Justice and Peace Ministry which educates parishioners and engages them in organized intervention to the plight of the poor.

---Three Christian Charity programs including "Society of St. Vincent de Paul," "Thanksgiving Dinner Program" and "Operation Christmas."

---"Feed the Children of the World" Pennies program which has funded housing projects in Nellore, India and Gawad Kalinga, Philippines.

St. Raphael Church, Los Angeles:
Through the gracious and dedicated support of many people at St. Raphael Parish, they have empowered their community by:

---Providing an ESL program for adults.

---Providing a citizenship program for adults.

---Creating a dialogue between the Hispanic and African American communities.

---Establishing holiday and year round food programs sponsored by the Carmelite Charity Fund.

St. Barbara Church, Santa Barbara:
The St. Barbara's Parish is dedicated to social justice through:

---The parish support of the JustFaith program for three years, a conversion-based process that seeks to integrate personal spirituality and social ministry. Over 14 have graduated from this program.

---The building of a Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Ministry based on this JustFaith model. From a retreat they set goals and commitments for the year for their justice work.

---They join with CLUE and PUEBLO, two CCHD funded organizations advocating for the poor, to work for systemic change; they support the Bringing Our Community Home program, which provides permanent housing for the homeless.

---Through Fonkoze, a group of women in the parish have lead a city effort to fund a branch micro credit bank in Haiti, offering loans and literacy training to over 1000 women. Parish support is provided.

2008 OPERATION RICE BOWL GRANTS

Each of the following parishes received an Operation Rice Bowl grant of $4,000 to purchase food for distribution to the needy in their community. This program is coordinated by Catholic Relief Services and funded by parishes and schools that participate in the Operation Rice Bowl Collection during Lent.

St. Bernard Church, Bellflower
St. Martha Church, Valinda
St. Joseph the Worker Church, Canoga Park
St. Peter Church, Los Angeles
St. Julie Billiart Church, Newbury Park

2008 LOCAL GRANT AWARDS

9TO5 LOS ANGELES
9to5 Los Angeles was formed in 2006 to build a broad multi-racial constituency of low-income women and women experiencing workplace discrimination. Their mission is to strengthen low-income women's ability to win economic justice. They combine public education, grassroots organizing, civic participation, policy campaigns and leadership development to improve employment policies while building for long-term goals-especially creation and retention of living wage, family-supporting and family-flexible jobs.

CAUSE
Established in May 2000 by the Ventura County Living Wage Coalition, a broad-based multi-ethnic coalition of fifty-eight faith, labor, student and community-based organizations, CAUSE is an effective force for institutional change in the California Central Coast Region of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. CAUSE is engaged in local, regional, and state campaigns to achieve its goals of grassroots power building and institutional change, with special focus on organizing the low-income immigrant women of their communities.

COALITION L.A.
Coalition LA is a multi-issue grassroots organization that develops neighborhood leaders by facilitating ways for poor and working class folks from various racial and ethnic backgrounds to work together on issues that directly benefit their communities. Residents of low-income neighborhoods (Pico-Union, Koreatown, Westlake, West Adams, Crenshaw and Watts) become community leaders with hands-on experience that fosters civic involvement.

GARMENT WORKER CENTER (GWC)
The Garment Worker Center, begun in 2001, is an independent non-profit organization that provides resources and opportunities for garment workers to learn about their rights, to develop themselves as leaders and to advocate against sweatshops. Their mission is to empower low wage immigrant garment workers in the Los Angeles area and to work in solidarity with other workers and disenfranchised communities in the struggle for social, economic and environmental justice.

HOUSING LONG BEACH
Housing Long Beach is a grass roots affordable housing advocacy coalition that was formed in 2002 to bring together community based organizations and low income tenants to engage in coordinated affordable housing advocacy in Long Beach. Their mission is to preserve and increase the supply of affordable housing for low income Long Beach residents.

INNERCITY STRUGGLE
InnerCity Struggle organizes youth and families to build power toward economic, social and educational justice in East Los Angeles and promotes healthy, safe and non-violent communities. InnerCity Struggle works to strengthen a cross-generational movement for educational justice in East Los Angeles that they have built over the last six years.

INSTITUTE FOR URBAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (IURD)
The Institute for Urban Research and Development (IURD) is a non-profit community and economic development organization that has begun to fulfill its mission of community organizing to meet the needs of low income residents who live within the Westlake/MacArthur Park area. Through its "Rediscover MacArthur Park" campaign, it is working to overcome decades of economic, residential, educational, environmental, and recreational disinvestment within the Westlake District. Mama's Hot Tamales Café, a program of IURD, is an apprenticed-owned business and job training restaurant that is well known in the area.

LOS ANGELES ALLIANCE FOR A NEW ECONOMY
Since 1993, LAANE has been committed to building a new economy that restores the American dream of fair wages, benefits, and job security in return for hard work. To achieve that vision, they work with multi-racial, cross-issue coalitions to improve the quality of the service sector jobs that are growing, cannot be exported or eliminated, and which must become the foundation for eliminating poverty, rebuilding a middle class, and improving the quality of life in our communities.

POMONA ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY CENTER
The Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC) opened in January of 1998 in response to an ordinance passed by the City of Pomona prohibiting day laborers from standing on street corners and looking for work. The mission of the PEOC is to provide an opportunity for day laborers to organize and advocate for themselves for policies that impact their lives, to look for work, to obtain new skills, and to set new and improved standards of labor practices.

STRATEGIC CONCEPTS IN ORGANIZING and POLICY EDUCATION (SCOPE)
SCOPE (formerly AGENDA) was established after the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles to address problems of poverty and underdevelopment in the inner-city community of South Los Angeles. As a regional organization now, they are a multi-dimensional community organization whose mission is to build the power of communities most impacted by poverty, racism and discrimination in order to achieve social and economic justice.

THE STEERING COMMITTEE FOR THE HONOR PROGRAM
The Steering Committee for the Honor Program was founded in June of 2000 by Kenneth E. Hartman, a life prisoner housed at the California State Prison-Los Angeles County. The purpose of The Steering Committee is to provide a platform for motivated prisoners, most of whom are serving life without parole sentences, to actively shape the agenda of the prison system to one in which rehabilitation is possible.

VENTURA COUNTY CLERGY and LAITY UNITED FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE
Ventura County Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (VC CLUE) is an interfaith group composed of over 40 congregations and religious associations. They strive to bring together clergy and congregational members around economic and social injustices. VC CLUE will continue to work towards universal health coverage for the uninsured children in Ventura County; advocate for the development of farm worker housing, living wage and worker rights campaigns; and humane treatment and policies affecting immigrant communities.

2008 NATIONAL GRANT AWARDS

ENLACE
Enlace is a strategic alliance founded in 1998 by a group of organizations that support the causes of the working poor in the U.S. and Mexico. They provide support for organizing campaigns and leadership development, facilitate practice in strategic planning, and organize connections to allies around the world who participate in supporting their members' campaigns. The 22 member organizations conduct economic justice organizing campaigns, fight racism and anti-immigrant bias, organize their communities to win affordable housing and organize for living wage jobs.

FIGUEROA CORRIDOR COALITION FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE (FCCEJ)
Initiated in 1999, the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice is comprised of various organizations working to advance economic justice and organize residents. FCCEJ is committed to stopping displacement and gentrification, improving housing conditions, democratizing planning and development, and creating access to living wage and union jobs, especially with their Figueroa Corridor Community Jobs Program as a model economic development program.

FIGUEROA CORRIDOR COMMUNITY LAND TRUST
The Land Trust was established out of widespread community discontent about gentrification, displacement, and redevelopment that did not meet community needs. It is a democratically controlled institution that is designed as an alternative to the absentee ownership. The primary focus of the Figueroa Corridor Community Land Trust is to remove land from the speculative market and then use the land for the long-term preservation and production of affordable housing.

GREATER LONG BEACH INTERFAITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Formed in 1998, Greater Long Beach Interfaith has developed an organization that allows low-income families and neighborhoods to participate more fully in that of their communities to work together to find remedies for the conditions affecting the quality of their lives. They have 11 congregations and their primary focus is on affordable housing and homelessness.

INSTITUTO DE EDUCACION POPULAR DEL DE CALIFORNIA (IDEPSCA)
Begun in 1983, IDEPSCA has grown from educators teaching ESL and Spanish literacy to organizing low-income immigrants concerned with solving problems in their own communities. This includes day laborers, household workers, parents and youth. Their women-led Domestic Workers' Association has launched Magic Cleaners, a worker-owned professional Eco-friendly Housecleaning company in the Pasadena area.

L.A. VOICE
Founded in 2000, L.A. Voice is an interfaith community organization that unites people from diverse backgrounds to improve the quality of life, especially for those in need. They have increased access to health care, improved public schools, and made neighborhoods safer. Together, L.A. Voice represents more than 30,000 families in 25 congregations across the Los Angeles area. They are part of the PICO National Network which empowers communities in 150 cities across the country.

LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY ACTION (CANGRESS)
The mission of LA CAN is to help people dealing with poverty find the means to be involved in the decisions that directly affect them. They accomplish this through their Share the Wealth campaign, which empowers homeless and extremely low-income community residents to stop displacement, promote economic opportunity and end the trend of criminalizing homelessness and poverty.

PEOPLE ORGANIZED FOR WESTSIDE RENEWAL (POWER)
People Organized for Westside Renewal is an institutionally based community organization working in low-income areas of Venice, Mar Vista, Inglewood and Santa Monica. Their main goal is to identify and train community leaders to help revitalize their neighborhoods. They have effectively collaborated with a number of neighborhood institutions to fight for social change.

PEOPLE UNITED FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE BUILDING LEADERSHIP THROUGH ORGANIZING (PUEBLO)
PUEBLO is a multi-issue community-based economic justice organization dedicated to building power and leadership among low-income Santa Barbara County residents. PUEBLO's core issues are immigrant rights, living wage, affordable housing, public transportation, childcare, and health care.

REGIONAL CONGREGATIONS & NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS TRAINING CENTER (RCNO)
RCNO Training Center instructs clergy and lay persons in the art of community organizing, public policy formation and program development. Their work is through the development of regional and statewide public policy initiatives coordinated through their affiliates. RCNO is working to get state legislators to fund public health programs for persons recently released from prison so their work will be done in the dioceses of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDUCATION FUND (IAF-LA)
The Southern California Education Fund was created in 2004 to assist One LA-IAF to build relational power for sustainable social and economic change for low and moderate income residents of Los Angeles County. One LA-IAF is a non-partisan multi-ethnic organization comprised of congregations, schools, unions, and non-profits. SCEF provides organizing resources, specifically institution-based leadership development opportunities and education, to assist One LA in building relationships between institutions.

2008 EMPOWERMENT AWARD: Los Angeles Community Action Network
The Empowerment Award is presented each year to an individual or organization whose work has embodied the values and principles of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development: empowering low-income communities to make social change which break the cycles of poverty.

The mission of Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) is to help people dealing with poverty create and discover opportunities, while serving as a vehicle to ensure they have voice, power and opinion in the decisions that are directly affecting them. Founded in 1999, LA CAN works primarily in the Central City East community of downtown LA, commonly known as Skid Row, although many of their collaborations have broader impact.

LA CAN builds indigenous leadership within the community to address the oppression faced by extremely low-income, predominately African-American residents. Their current work focuses mainly on preventing the gentrification of downtown Los Angeles and the mass displacement of poor people of color, as well as projects that improve the overall health and safety of our community. Their victories include preserving 16,000 residential hotel units citywide, 8,000 of which are in downtown LA and home to LA's poorest residents.