We're excited to announce that Lost Angels Children's Project is our 2021-Q3 Grants for Good recipient. Lost Angels Children's Project serves disadvantaged youth, young adults, and families as well as distressed communities through innovative vocational training, social enterprise, and traditional outreach programs. Apex consultant Gloria A. nominated Lost Angels Children’s Project and connected us with Matt, the organization's administrative director. We learned that Matt has been with the organization for two years and helped develop their vocational training program during our one-on-one video interview.
Here is a recap of our interview with Matt:
About Lost Angels Children's Project
Executive Director of Lost Angels Children's Project Aaron Valencia was a classic car restoration expert. In 2014, he decided to teach those skills to kids from probation and foster youth. It gave these kids the opportunity to learn valuable STEM skills. From there, they started doing actual vocational training for the transition-age youth while getting paid to work and learn how to restore custom classic automobiles. This gave the kids the first job on their resume and many valuable new skills.
How has Lost Angels Children's Project impacted disadvantaged youth?
Per Matt, they are in their fourth training cohort. Thus far, 36 have graduated, and another 14 are going through vocational training. In total, they will have 50 kids graduating. As Matt indicated, "We've had a few kids get $50,000 plus benefits jobs, but there are other jobs where they're gonna have to put their dues in a little longer, but they'll be building that resume, and then we stay in touch with them. We upgrade their resume when they get that additional experience, and then we submit it again to those employers that we want to see them end up with. That's another aspect of our program that we're really developing and pushing."
How can people support Lost Angels Children's Project?
Lost Angels Children's Project builds many strategic partnerships in the community. They work on different streams of revenue that can help Lost Angels, including contracts they're hoping to land. These contracts help with social enterprise revenue as well. Matt added, "We're basically applying business principles to the nonprofit world to make it a more sustainable and investable enterprise."
Visit Lost Angels Children's Project and spread the word. You can share the live video link by clicking here to listen.
Don't forget to nominate your chosen nonprofit for consideration on our subsequent Grants for Good. The selected nonprofit receives $1,000 from Apex. Learn more about our Grants for Good program and access the nomination form here.
