Diana Lopez really enjoys her two childcare jobs within Puente’s Youth Leadership and Employment program. The 19-year-old likes working with small children. And this summer, her earnings are helping her family pay the rent. Both her parents recently lost their jobs at a Pescadero flower nursery. Now Puente’s entire youth program, is in jeopardy because it no longer qualifies for federal funding.

“My parents are trying to find a job and work hard, but they need my help,” says Lopez, who helps staff an all-day pre-kindergarten program run by the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District and provides activities for children while their parents attend Zumba classes and parenting programs like Abriendo Puertas.

Lopez has been a part of Puente’s youth program since her sophomore year of high school. She readily admits the experience has changed her life. “I see myself as a more responsible person, more organized, more outgoing. Back then I was such a troublemaker,” she says jokingly.

Lopez struggled as a student. She rarely did her homework and failed nearly all her tests. “I would always say I wanted to drop out of high school. People at Puente would say, ‘You’ve got to go to college.’ Puente helped me with tutors. The fact that I went to college, I have Puente to thank for that,” she says,

Today, not only is she thriving in college, she is a leader at Puente.

Puente’s Youth Leadership and Employment Program has always been about more than giving young people a job. It’s about cultivating their futures, giving them marketable job skills, and offering them the chance to earn an hourly wage.

More often than not, these youth use their earnings to support their low-income families or to pay for college.

Now all their futures are affected by the news that Puente has lost $240,000 worth of federal funding for its youth program – which includes all youth salaries, funding for field trips, transportation, food and Puente’s program personnel, including a teacher for summer reading. The changes came down in June, just as the summer youth program was gearing up.

Some of the participants in Puente’s youth program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on a recent field trip.

The federal Workforce Investment Act has been the program’s main source of funding, as administered by San Mateo County. But a recent reboot of the federal program limited the requirements for funding to such an extent that not one of the youth currently enrolled in Puente’s Summer Youth Program qualifies for assistance, says Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel.

One major difference in the new program: the U.S. Department of Labor has switched its focus to out-of-school youth – students who dropped out of high school or did not continue on to college. That’s the one thing Puente’s youth program does: it helps keep kids in school and pushes them to attend college.

But just because the money is gone, doesn’t mean the program will disappear.

“Puente has a strong commitment to the youth of the South Coast – to youth leadership training and job preparation. We did it before we had county or federal funding, and we’ll do it after,” says Lobel.

Even if it means making other painful cuts – inconceivable as those would be.

“It’s a cornerstone Puente program and one we’re fully prepared to let other programs go to support – although God knows what that looks like,” she adds.

Since 2007, Puente has been the largest employer of young people on the South Coast. Each summer, Puente hires and trains dozens of youth – nearly 30% of students in Pescadero Middle and High School. Without Puente, South Coast youth lack access to employment and enrichment opportunities. But thanks to the Youth Leadership and Employment Program at Puente, between 30 and 40 young people earn salaries as childcare providers, program managers, tutors, camp counselors, and provide office support to promote job readiness and personal development.

Their collective labors not only support Puente’s programs but the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, YMCA Camp Jones Gulch, the library in Half Moon Bay, and a local farm program, among other examples. Click here for a video diary of the 2014 youth summer program.

The funding gap has forced Puente to tap into its rainy day reserve, but that’s not a sustainable solution. “We have 38 young people who are now working at Puente who we need to pay,” says Lobel. A Puente youth typically earns $2,500 to $5,000 a year, depending on whether they work over the summer or year-round.

Puente needs to buy time to find long-term institutional support for the youth program. And that’s where we need our supporters to step in.

Puente is launching a campaign to raise $168,416 by the end of the summer, and we are calling on the wider community to step up. A donation of  $493 supports one Puente youth for one week and provides a salary,access to transportation, summer reading and tutoring, food and field trips. $4,432 pays one youth’s salary and support services for the summer. Please click here to donate.

But back to the students.

Diana Lopez still remembers her first job with Puente, working at the front desk as a receptionist, answering phones, greeting participants and helping them get connected up with staff.

By the time she was 15, Lopez had already seen the inside of the principal’s office and been suspended from school more times than she could count. Her new role at Puente involved working with adults; making conversation and helping people feel welcome. It was tough at first. “In my first year it was hard for me to speak to people,” says Lopez. “But once I started working at Puente, I had something to be into. I had to be responsible and organized with my work.”

Diana assists children in the summer of 2012

That was in 2011. Since then, Lopez has held a series of jobs through Puente with increasing levels of responsibility: reading to students at Homework Club; after-school child care and one-on-on tutoring with the local school district; working as a teachers’ aide and translator in Puente’s ESL classes. Now she is a student at College of San Mateo. She used part of her Puente earnings to buy a used Honda Civic to drive to her classes. She has decided she wants to be a police officer.

Lopez’s life-changing experience would not have been possible under the new way of administering the Workforce Investment Act, now known as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Under the new rules, only youth whose family earnings fall below the federal poverty level, who are disabled, or who are deficient in basic skills can qualify. Ironically, that doesn’t include any South Coast youth – even those whose parents are farm workers.

The new federal rules also discourage nonprofits from sponsoring students as young as 14 or 15, and prevents them from holding more than one job at a time. That’s just not practical for Puente youth, who would not otherwise have a chance to find work. And from Puente’s perspective, early intervention spells better chances of success.

Kris Gonzalez is 15 and is already in his second summer job with Puente. Last year he chose to help out with a children’s reading program at the Half Moon Bay Library. He helped teachers supervise the youngest children, watched them at playtime, took care of giving them lunch and bathroom breaks, and reshelved books.

Kris on the field trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“It was really special to have that for my first job. The kids were really social, and they wanted to hang out with me and talk to me,” he says. “It was a lot more responsibility too, because I had to take care of children. That was a biggie.”

This year Gonzalez wanted to work in a kitchen, so he does food prep at YMCA Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda. “If I’m ever hungry I know how to cook something right away,” he notes.

If he didn’t have his summer job, Gonzalez would likely spend most of his time holed up in his bedroom reading, or at his friends’ houses playing video games. But because of Puente, he’s had the chance to work and to stretch himself beyond his comfort zone.

Gonzalez, like the other high school students in the youth program, is also working with Puente’s Summer Teacher, Shannon White. Last year White spent four weeks at Puente through a grant from the Lilly Endowment, coming to the South Coast during her summer break from her job as a high school teacher in Indianapolis. This year, she’s coordinating summer reading with students and helping them navigate their transcripts to prepare for the coming school year. White has also been one of the chaperones on the field trips for the summer. “I chose to return to Puente this summer because I have a heart for this organization and the people it serves–in particular these amazing students with incredible stories.  They deserve every chance and opportunity we can give them. ”

Gonzalez imagines himself becoming a scientist or an engineer, “or maybe both.” In order to make his dreams come true, he knows he’ll need to go to college. But his parents told him they won’t be able afford the tuition on the basis of their income alone. They need their son to chip in, and thanks to Puente, he can.

“When I go to college, we won’t have to pay as much,” he says.

Diana Lopez, Kris Gonzalez, and other Puente youth need your help today. Please click here to donate to the Youth Leadership and Development Program. Thank you

Almost anyone who makes it a habit to give of their time, love or money will explain that they hope to make a difference in someone’s life. Knowing you’ve done so is a pleasure. And meeting the person you’ve helped – that can be transformational.

For years, members of the Benicia Community Congregational Church have donated funds toward buying backpacks and stuffing them with reams of school supplies – enough for every single kindergartener and first grade student in the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District whose families are unable to buy their own. Then they take the extra step of driving to Puente each year to deliver the supplies and spend time in fellowship with the community their donations benefit.

Members of Benicia Community Congregational Church with backpacks

If Benicia Congregational had simply donated the supplies – which benefit more than 40 children each year – their act of generosity would have been more than enough. But the act of giving itself has never been the stopping point, says Sarah Thompson, chair of the Mission and Outreach Committee for the church. It’s about relationships.

“It’s really important to make those personal connections. We’re not just making these backpacks for a faceless person; there’s going to be someone receiving them,” says Thompson, a professor of sociology at Las Positas Community College in Livermore. She and her family live in American Canyon, in Napa County, and are longtime members of Benicia Congregational Church.

That’s why, once they receive a “wish list” from Puente, kids in the congregation shop for the school supplies in person, rather than online. And they not only buy typical supplies like pencils, paints, notebooks, binders and glue sticks; they also purchase lunch boxes, thermoses and sweatshirts. They take care to ensure that every sweatshirt is a little different, so each child can feel unique.

That’s not all. Benicia Congregational also buys extra supplies for teachers in La Honda and Pescadero – a way to acknowledge that South Coast teachers are often called upon to dig deep into their own pockets during the school year and come up with extra crayons, calculators and everything in between for their students.

Back at the church, the young people form a joyful assembly line to stuff the backpacks with all the goodies they bought. But not before adding an incredibly thoughtful touch: handwritten notes in each bag that say things like “Have a great school year!” and “Study hard!”

Sarah Thompson (right) with backpacks and members of Benecia Community Congregational Church

Thompson and her husband have two daughters, aged 12 and 14, who relish the process of putting together those individual backpacks each year.

“The girls love Puente. They really get to assemble everything and make it all look nice. They get to imagine what the response will be: what will they think when they see it?” says Thompson.

Benicia Community Congregational partakes in a United Church of Christ tradition that is deeply rooted in justice, fellowship and mutual respect. From the start of the church’s relationship with Puente, Thompson and other congregants felt that it was important to meet the people their donations benefit. So each August, when they drive to Puente to unload their supplies, Thompson’s group always brings a picnic to share. They spend time with Puente staff and meet local parents. Their kids sometimes play together on the jungle gym with the local kids. It’s a relationship with mutual benefits.

Puente values its indispensable partnerships with over fifteen faith groups and congregations across the Bay Area, such as Knitzvah and the Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church. Of these, Benicia is one of the farthest afield: more than an hour and a half by car from Pescadero. Benicia is an affluent bedroom community with a large professional class and a majority white population. Pescadero is rural, isolated and agricultural. Yet in spite of those differences, “we see ourselves as an extended family. We are two communities, linked,” says Thompson. “Puente has become integral to our church’s mission.”

Those bonds date back to Puente’s early days as a mission founded by Rev. Wendy Taylor, a UCC minister at Pescadero Community Church. The Benicia congregation invited Rev. Taylor to speak at their church. They subsequently helped gather bicycles to donate to Puente to distribute to farm workers. When Kerry Lobel took over as Executive Director, the church formalized its relationship with Puente and focused its efforts on gathering school supplies. Lobel is close with Thompson and the youth ministers at the Benicia Church.

Kerry Lobel, right, with members of Benecia Community Congregational Church and youth from Puente.

“It’s been my great pleasure to watch the youth from Benicia grow up over the years, especially Sarah’s daughters Audrey and Lydia. Each year, we share a meal together, community to community, and friend to friend. Each backpack is assembled with care, each contains a personal note of encouragement. I remember our first season together — a giant truck came bearing bikes and backpacks — they just kept coming,” says Lobel.

Benicia Community Congregational takes a similar hands-on approach to all its charitable giving, much of which has a strong social justice element. The congregation “adopts” several local families at Christmas and helps them with food, gifts, and whatever else they need. The church does homeless outreach once a month. Sometimes that outreach involves bringing church youth to visit homeless encampments and talk with the people who live there. It’s a reality check.

Thompson says her church values and appreciates farm workers on the South Coast and across California for the work they do to pick and pack the food her community enjoys. Farm workers have the lowest annual family incomes of any category of U.S. salaried workers. Thompson calls it “the most extreme form of charity there is.”

“We owe a great deal of gratitude to the wider Puente community, because people re working for substandard wages. They’re literally subsidizing the food we eat. So this is something we give back in the form of appreciation,” she says.

Members of Puente’s Youth Program eat with members of Benicia

Puente’s annual school supply drive is in full swing, and the community needs your help. Each year, more than 2/3 of Pescadero and La Honda students — nearly 250 children and youth — need backpacks and school supplies for the coming year. Puente is asking for purchases online at Roonga.com, where you can select which items you would like to donate. If you would prefer to give directly to Puente, give us a call at (650) 879-1691 or visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/puente and designate your donation for the Backpack Campaign.

Selena Bustamante and her husband Gerardo were full of anxiety when they signed up for Puente’s first-ever Project SUCCESS workshop for parents of fifth grade students who are headed into middle school next year. Their only son, Gabriel, had reached puberty earlier than the other kids in his class. The 11-year-old was misbehaving and talking back to his parents, acting sullen and distant.

They were hurt, angry and confused. “He would tell me, ‘I wish you didn’t exist,’” says Selena (whose name has been changed). They had questions for Puente’s experts, some of them slightly awkward: why was their son, who had barely worried about relations with girls, suddenly asking his parents questions about sex based on things he had heard? And how were they to answer him?

Most troublesome of all, they worried that Gabriel’s transition from elementary school to Pescadero’s middle school would expose him to drugs and alcohol – concerns that can sometimes be well founded, according to Joann Watkins, Clinical Director for Puente. “It’s an important age because they’re going into puberty, going to a different school, middle school, where there will be a lot more influence from their peers,” she says.

This year, Puente set out to address those concerns by engaging 5^th grade students and parents through Project SUCCESS, an early intervention program that has been proven to be successful in the area of drug and alcohol awareness across the country. Puente wanted Pescadero and La Honda parents to learn about some of these same topics in the context of raising healthy, well-adjusted teenagers.

So Puente pioneered two successful new efforts: a brand-new 8-week workshop for every member of the outgoing 5^th grade classes at La Honda and Pescadero Elementary schools. This entailed a different approach from previous years, where Watkins and her staff have focused solely on “at-risk” students – those who have already been exposed to drugs or alcohol by friends, or through a family history of substance abuse.

And for the first time, Puente held two corresponding 6-week courses – one in English and one in Spanish – for their parents, also held in La Honda and Pescadero. Puente went to great lengths to recruit busy parents, including telephone calls, flyers and sending letters home with students. Puente offered dinner, childcare and raffle prizes as additional incentives to the parents.

One of the mothers who took part in Project Success.

The Project SUCCESS curriculum is sponsored by a three-year grant from San Mateo County’s office of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. Project SUCCESS has a long history on the South Coast, first coordinated by the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, and then, Puente.  The grant was renewed for another three years in June.

Puente has historically used this funding for youth discussion groups and workshops on topics like drug and alcohol use, peer pressure, healthy dating, domestic violence, and the perils of rape drugs and driving under the influence. The Youth Leadership Institute, based in San Francisco, provides support for some of the programs.

The 5^th grade students allowed themselves to be vulnerable and bond over the mutual trust they created in their workshops this winter, according to Celia Gagnon, a Puente Mental Health Trainee and La Honda resident who facilitated the La Honda student and parent groups. Gagnon had the students engage in art therapy by painting a mural to help pinpoint the lessons they learned during the sessions. When they were done, both student groups voted to have the murals installed inside the 5^th grade classroom as a legacy for incoming students.

“It created this kind of wonderful unity and understanding. It carried into the parenting group – there was a warm feeling,” says Gagnon. In La Honda, “the parents were so pleased with it that at the end they said, how can we keep this camaraderie going?”

The parenting workshops covered the physical changes of adolescence, including changes to the limbic system, a time when moodiness and risk-taking are part of the equation; the importance of open-minded communication, in particular on the topics of drugs and alcohol; and handling children’s exposure to social media and cyberbullying, among other topics.

La Honda parent Siobhan Togliatti attended 5 out of 6 workshops offered in La Honda and says she got a lot out of them, especially in regards to her own concerns about how to stay on top of her son Guido’s computer use and preempt his exposure to inappropriate forms of media. She appreciated Puente bringing in an outside expert on the topic.

“The red flag for me is the technology stuff – the texting and video games and YouTube. As a parent, you just have to continue to read and monitor and be hard-nosed about it. You have to ask, ‘What are you watching?’” she says. “Email is next.”

Togliatti doubts her son is likely to consume drugs and alcohol, but she is aware that La Honda is not immune to those realities. “There’s a group of older kids that hangs out in town – freshman and sophomores – and I already hear stories from my son that they’re smoking pot and drinking and stuff,” she says.

Those are important concerns, and Puente has the resources to educate families and get them help if they need it. The workshops offered coping and conversation tools.

Two parents participate in Project Success.

“There were a lot of questions and fears about kids going into middle school – what about peer pressure? Bullying? It all went back to creating that connection with their kids that could help them have an open line of communication,” says Iris Fernandez, Puente’s Mental Health Intern, who facilitated the workshops in Pescadero.

Puente also brought in the principal of Pescadero Middle and High School, Pat Talbot, to tell parents what to expect at middle school and how to stay involved in their children’s education, which went a long way toward reassuring many of the parents. Talbot also discussed the safe school movement — research shows that schools with a positive and welcoming school climate increase the likelihood that students succeed academically while protecting them from engaging in high risk behaviors like substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence.

Selena Bustamante says having a school official talk to her group made her feel “more relaxed.” So did hearing about the science behind adolescent brain development. “My son has been going through a lot of mood changes, and I didn’t know it was normal as part of his adolescence,” she adds.

Since the workshop ended, Selena and her husband have made an effort to talk to their son in a non-judgmental way, based on the techniques they learned at Puente. Now, she says, “I have open communication with him. We talk about drugs, about alcohol and the dangers of engaging in that. One thing I learned from this class is we need to build up trust and to make an effort to answer the questions he has.”

There were other reasons Puente wanted to reach out to parents. Watkins and her staff needed a sensitive way to approach a difficult topic: alcohol and drug use within families. Teens are comfortable talking about the topic of substance abuse, but adults treat it as their “private business,” she says.

“Drugs and alcohol are a big problem in all communities, but in this community there’s such a high level of generational trauma that a number of kids are self-medicating,” Watkins explains.

“If you’re coming from a family with domestic violence, child abuse and trauma, it keeps people stuck and they pass that along to kids,” Watkins adds. “Those kids are at a much higher risk of becoming users themselves.”

Puente’s mental health program is well equipped to treat young people in need of counseling, and Puente works closely with the local school district to identify them early on. Yet that doesn’t change the fact that the kids live in an area where the acceptance level is high for kids using alcohol and drugs like marijuana. Puente would like to see that change.

It’s hard to avoid the same mistakes your parents made. But sometimes all it takes is remembering the sting of one’s own adolescence – or a deeper family pain. In their first session, each parent was asked to create his or her own collage out of magazine clippings and art supplies, depicting memories of their childhoods and the things they did. It was meant to bring parents closer to their preteens. But “it brought back a lot of memories of substance abuse in their own lives,” says Fernandez.

“One woman showed her mother praying and herself inside the car with her drunk father,” Fernandez recalls. “She talked about how she didn’t have the space to discuss these things. After being in the class, she felt she could create that safe space for her kids to do that.”