JACS PR 7/06

JACS Announces $15,000 for 2006 Grantees

The Japanese American Community Services of Southern California (JACS) recently announced their 2006 grant recipients at an Awards Presentation reception held in Little Tokyo. JACS awarded $15,000 to 7 community projects from Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), California Japanese American Community Leadership Council (CJACLC), Camp Musubi, Deaf Asia Foundation, Great Leap, Southeast Asian Community Alliance (SEACA) and Visual Communications.

A3PCON, a coalition of over 50 community based organizations in the Asian and Pacific Islander communities was funded for a Tenant Rights Project to develop a tenant rights handbook translated into Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Bengali, Tagalog and Spanish. The handbook will be used as an organizing and education tool to mobilize tenants to protect their housing.

CJACLC was funded for the Nikkei Community Internship, a summer internship program for Nikkei college students working at various non-profit organizations in the Japanese American community.

Camp Musubi, the third program was funded for a weeklong day camp that incorporates fun and diverse activities to convey aspects of the Japanese American culture and community to middle school youth. The camp will be held on August 21-25, 2006 at Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo.

JACS supported the Deaf Asia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps the deaf community obtain better technology assistance, media accessibility and Information services for the deaf and hard of hearing communities in the U.S. and Asia. The Deaf Asia Foundation held one day Deaf Asia Festival at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo in June.

Great Leap was funded for Collaboratory—Round 3, a cross-disciplinary arts initiative serving as an incubation program in which veteran artists mentor emerging young artists of color in creating, developing and presenting cross-cultural collaborative performance and community-based residency skills.

SEACA, is an organization engaging in multi-ethnic community organizing, targeting Cambodian, Lao, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese families in the Chinatown and Echo Park areas of Los Angeles. SEACA has developed the Youth Leadership Project providing education, training, leadership skills and ongoing mentorship for low-income immigrant and refugee youth.

Finally, Visual Communications’ project, Little Tokyo Redevelopment/Save Our Stories project will preserve, catalog and digitize 200 videotapes from Little Tokyo Redevelopment, addressing the issue of historic cultural preservation of their moving image collections.

At the Awards Presentation, JACS also recognized the 2005 grant recipients—Little Tokyo Recreation Center, Los Angeles Chinatown Youth Council, and A3PCON.

The origins of JACS can be traced 100 years back to Shonien, a Los Angeles-based children’s home and day nursery for Japanese immigrants. After World War II and the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans, the Shonien redirected its focus to provide family and community social services, and eventually became the Japanese American Community Services of Southern California, Inc. in 1961.

The Shonien home was sold and proceeds placed in a trust fund. Since then, JACS has provided funds to a broad range of community and social service groups serving the Nikkei and Asian Pacific American communities.

For over 40 years, JACS has provided funds to a broad range of community and social service groups serving the Nikkei and Asian Pacific American communities. Currently, JACS provides financial support to emerging groups and projects in the Greater Los Angeles area, with a focus on community service, health and human services, cultural arts and leadership development.

JACS will be announcing their 2007 grants cycle in the Fall of 2006.

For more information about JACS, see the website, www.jacsfund.org