CONTACT:
Rebecca Salner, Media Relations Officer
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
650.450.5525 or rsalner@siliconvalleycf.org

More than $1.3 Million in Grants Awarded to Strengthen Legal Services for Immigrants and Bridge Cultural Gaps

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Eight organizations will receive grants to expand legal services for immigrants and refugees in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to meet the growing needs of a region in which one-third of all residents are immigrants.

In addition, Silicon Valley Community Foundation announced that 12 organizations will receive grants for multi-faceted arts and communications programs that deepen understanding of immigrant communities.

A total of $1.39 million in grants will be awarded as part of the community foundation’s immigrant integration strategy.

The grants in the legal services area will increase the number of consultations organizations can provide and cut waiting times for low-income immigrants seeking legal assistance. Although comprehensive immigration reform stalled at the national level last year, the community foundation believes it is critical that communities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties be prepared when broad reform becomes a reality. These grants will help strengthen legal services for immigrants.

"The future of our region is intertwined and dependent on the success of the many immigrants who come to our communities seeking new opportunities," said Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., CEO and president of the community foundation. "While highly-skilled and well-paid immigrants can afford attorneys, too many immigrants do not have incomes that allow them to get the legal help they need with routine and complex citizenship and immigration cases. These grants mean more families will be served and our communities will be better prepared for inevitable immigration reforms."

*Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, one of the largest non-profit, multi-service agencies in Santa Clara County, received two grants totaling $172,460. One of the grants will help expand legal services at its Eastside Neighborhood center in San Jose and in Gilroy. The other grant will help Catholic Charities coordinate a planning process for a new Immigrant Legal Services Collaborative, which will work to improve immigrants’ access to legal services by determining which cases are the highest priorities to take on, which agencies will focus on which type of clients and how services might be distributed geographically.

Currently, the demand for immigrant legal services in Santa Clara County is far greater than the ability of existing agencies to provide help. In addition to Catholic Charities, other possible members of the collaborative include the Center for Employment Training, the International Rescue Committee of San José, Santa Clara County Asian Law Alliance, Santa Clara University Law School’s Katherine & George Alexander Community Law Center and Services, and Immigrant Rights and Education Network.

*Collaborative Resources for Immigrant Services on the Peninsula received a $250,000 grant to provide legal services to low-income immigrants, focusing on children and their immigrant families. CRISP was formed in 2005 and is made up of six community-based organizations that provide direct services to immigrants on the Peninsula and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco. In the coming year, CRISP intends to work on additional policy issues, such as encouraging prosecution of fraudulent immigration providers and helping immigrants avoid fraudulent "notarios." Both Catholic Charities and CRISP intend to increase collaborative efforts among legal services providers in the two counties.

*Immigrant Legal Resource Center of San Francisco received a $50,000 grant to explore developing web-based solutions such as podcasts, wikis and other social networking platforms to distribute free legal resources and online training to nonprofit legal service providers in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

Twelve organizations received grants for multi-faceted arts or communications programs that help immigrants tell their stories and deepen their participate in the region’s civic life. The grants will help fund an eclectic mix of projects that use culture and art to promote social change, bringing immigrants and other communities together to reduce prejudices and misconceptions.

*Asian American Recovery Services of Santa Clara County received a $75,000 grant for its Vietnamese Community Integration Campaign, which shares challenges faced by the Vietnamese community through theater and media campaigns. AARS plans to create theater performances illustrating the struggles of cultural integration and to broadcast stories from those performances on a Vietnamese radio station.

*Peninsula Interfaith Action received a $75,000 grant to create a series of multi-media products including stories, webcasts and photo essays to deepen multicultural understanding and facilitate public policy discussions between PIA leaders and public officials. The group would hold discussions at PIA congregations to explore the disproportionate impacts of public policy decisions on immigrants and people-of-color and identify a policy issue to explore more deeply.

About Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Silicon Valley Community Foundation is a catalyst and leader for innovative solutions to our region’s most challenging problems. Serving all of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the community foundation has $1.5 billion in assets under management and 1,500 philanthropic funds. The community foundation provides grants through donor advised and corporate funds in addition to its own Community Endowment Fund. In addition, the community foundation serves as a regional center for philanthropy, providing donors simple and effective ways to give locally and around the world. Silicon Valley Community Foundation launched in January 2007 following the landmark merger of Community Foundation Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation and is now one of the largest community foundations in the nation. Find out more at www.siliconvalleycf.org.