My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, an initiative of the Obama Foundation, has selected Sacramento’s My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Collaborative as one of 19 communities across the country to receive grants and access to technical assistance to improve life outcomes for boys and young men of color.
The MBK Community Challenge is providing strategic support and a total of more than $5 million in select communities nationwide. As part of a two-year partnership, the Sacramento MBK Collaborative will receive $425,000 from the MBK Alliance and $75,000 from the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color, to help jump-start initiatives, build capacity and attract additional resources and partners. A total of five California communities have been awarded grants, including Oakland, Richmond, Fresno and Los Angeles in addition to Sacramento.
“A successful future for California requires the vision, talent and contributions of all our young people,” said Chet P. Hewitt, President and CEO of Sierra Health Foundation and The Center. “While we are proud of the collective work that is happening in Sacramento and throughout the state to improve opportunities and outcomes for boys and young men of color, there is much more to be done. Building upon our partnerships with community organizations and young men themselves, we can make good on the promise of a more hopeful future for all young people.”
“I am so proud of the work being done in and by Sacramento to confront the inequities facing our community, particularly our young people. We need change. Sacramento is ready.” said Sacramento Mayor, Darrell Steinberg.
The MBK Sacramento Collaborative brings leaders, community partners, youth-serving organizations, young people and policymakers together to address issues like health, education, employment and the school-to-prison pipeline. “MBK lives to make everyone worth anything, and to make struggle not go unnoticed,” said Terry Vang, MBK Sacramento Youth Fellow.
This funding will scale up the Black Child Legacy Campaign’s Healing the Hood Initiative at seven neighborhood service hubs, the MBK Sacramento Youth Fellowship Program, the Positive Youth Justice Initiative and community programs such as Advance Peace, Sacramento City Unified School District’s Men’s Leadership Academy, Improve Your Tomorrow, and others that utilize mentorship, restorative justice and healing-centered, trauma-informed practices to create opportunity for boys and men of color.
“Our community partners have long pressed against the systemic inequities that keep our young men from the successful lives they want and deserve,” said Dr. Stacey Ault with Sacramento State and Cristian Franco with MILPA serve as the MBK Sacramento Collaborative Co-Chairs. “With the announcement of this investment in our community, we celebrate our partners’ vision of health, education and achievement for the region’s boys and men of color.”
Sacramento is one of three California communities selected as an “impact community” to replicate or scale community-led evidence based solutions.
“At a time of such urgent need for safety, economic development, and change for our most marginalized communities, we are honored to stand up as a city in support of and with our boys and men of color,” said Sacramento City Councilmember Rick Jennings, former chair of the MBK Sacramento Collaborative.
As a partner to the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color (CFBMoC), a network of California foundation CEOs committed to dismantling barriers to opportunity for boys and men of color, is providing financial resources to selected communities in California. Sierra Health Foundation participates as a member of CFBMoC.
Through the My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge, launched by President Obama in 2014, nearly 250 communities in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia accepted the call to action to adopt innovative approaches, strengthen supports, and build ladders of opportunity for boys and young men of color and other underserved youth. The Challenge called for local public and private leaders to convene their communities and youth to develop a local action plan, which would include concrete goals, a protocol for tracking data, benchmarks for tracking progress, and available resources to support communities’ efforts.
My Brother’s Keeper Sacramento Collaborative is managed by The Center at Sierra Health Foundation. Learn more on the MBK Sacramento web page.
The Center at Sierra Health Foundation brings people, ideas and infrastructure together to create positive change. With strategy, creativity and ongoing collaboration, The Center strives to eradicate health inequities across the state. www.shfcenter.org
