A Vista into New Roles & Worlds: My Year with SLATE-Z

By Lucia Cappella

In March 2024, I joined SLATE-Z as a Communications Associate through the Americorps VISTA program. I was a fresh college grad, and though I had some experience with social impact communications, I knew I wanted to spend my year of service trying my hand at various roles within the nonprofit space. I hoped I would get the chance to at SLATE-Z.

Soon after joining the SLATE-Z team, it became clear that this was a great place for someone with my goals. Since it is a small organization, there are lots of opportunities to wear multiple hats. SLATE-Z’s role as a convening organization also means the staff regularly collaborates with other community-based organizations, federal and state agencies, and foundations, providing exposure to a wide variety of social impact career pathways.

In addition to my communications tasks, I jumped into the Transit Workgroup facilitator role, helping to set agendas and facilitate meetings that push forward SLATE-Z’s goals around transit – one of their five levers of change. Since taking on this role, I've had numerous opportunities to attend in-person events, like the annual Move LA conference, which took place at historic Biltmore Hotel. I loved getting to listen in on panels about exciting topics in transportation, like the legacy of the 2028 Olympic Games, all while surrounded by the folks passionate about transforming transit in LA.

Another of SLATE-Z's initiatives I help to support is called Cultural Treasures of South LA. By just sitting in on meetings for this initiative, I get to watch collaboration between a diverse group of professionals unfold, including folks from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Neighborhood Data for Social Change, Community Coalition, and LA Commons. Through exposure to their work, I am learning how my interests in communications, arts, and activism can be combined and turned into a career. 

SLATE-Z is an interesting and strategic place from which to launch a career, but it’s also a wonderful place to spend a year of service. With a warm, collaborative, and passionate team, I felt instantly welcome. Prospective VISTA’s, definitely apply!

SLATE-Z's Data Dashboard Highlights Goal, Strategies, and Milestones for the South LA Promise Zone

My name is Michael Diaz, and I am an AmeriCorps VISTA member at SLATE-Z. Over the past year, I have served as the SLATE_Z Data & Evaluation Associate. Along with being the Data & Evaluation Associate, I worked as the Transit Workgroup coordinator for SLATE-Z's Transit Workgroup. During my tenure, I worked with USC’s Neighborhood Data for Social Change alongside SLATE-Z's Director of Policy and Partnerships, Sulma Hernández, to coordinate meetings and help gather public data for the USC team to analyze and build out visualizations.  

On April 30th, 2023, SLATE-Z launched a community data dashboard that captures metrics for our five Levers of Change: Education, Jobs, Public Safety, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Transit. Data is a valuable tool to track the progress of projects, programs, and other work. The SLATE-Z Data Dashboard is a community resource that tracks the efforts of the South Los Angeles Promise Zone through different Data Visualizations and help reflect its impact in the region. For example, the Transit Workgroup page is tracking traffic collision rates in the South LA Promise Zone and the City of LA in the form of a line chart which showcases the number of traffic collisions involving pedestrians or cyclist per 10,000 residents in the South LA Promise Zone and compared citywide from 2010-2020. The SLATE-Z Data Dashboard exists to illustrate the broader story of collective impact in the South Los Angeles Promise Zone.  

Being able to tell SLATE-Z's story through a data-driven approach allows us to share the work our Partners are doing to help move South LA residents to economic opportunity. The SLATE-Z Data Dashboard can be accessed by visiting slatezdata.org. 

Looking Back, 2021 Success Story: Foster Youth Subcommittee provides over 30 Youth in Foster Care with Transition Support Services

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has continued to exacerbate the barriers faced by many South Los Angeles foster youth.  Connected with these ongoing needs, last year the LA County Department of Children and Family Services projected that an estimated 1,800 youth would age out of foster care by the end of 2021, due to pandemic relief that extended the period of care past their 21st birthdays.  In response to this, SLATE-Z, led by the co-chairs of its Foster Youth Subcommittee, i.e., the Coalition for Responsible Community Development (CRCD), LA County Department for Children and Family Services (DCFS), and LA Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC), analyzed the unique, systemic barriers impacting South Los Angeles foster youth, hoping to create tailored solutions for our community.  Over a six-month period, SLATE-Z brought together governmental entities, community-based organizations, consultants, and other parties to strategize ways to support the approximately 50 youth in foster care who were both connected to the SLATE-Z area and would be aging out of the system by the end of 2021.   

After months of examining system wide approaches, SLATE-Z’s Foster Youth Subcommittee identified a very local solution: bringing together workforce development, housing, legal assistance, and other resources to South Los Angeles foster youth at a resource fair held on the campus of Los Angeles Trade Technical College (LATTC), which is the lead agency for the South Los Angeles Promise Zone that SLATE-Z manages.

Two of SLATE-Z's Foster Youth Subcommittee Co-Chairs: Kenta Estrada-Darley from the Coalition for Responsible Community Development and Jenny Serrano from LA County Department of Children and Family Services.

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The event occurred shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday and was hosted in collaboration with NextUp and LATTC.   Over the course of the day, SLATE-Z and its partners welcomed over 30 foster youth aged 16-25 to LATTC’s Downtown LA campus.   

Participating service providers included Brotherhood Crusade, CRCD, Los Angeles Job Corps, Public Counsel, and the LA County Departments of Children and Family Services, Consumer Affairs, and Public Social Services.  In addition to sharing connections for workforce development and other support, providers also distributed care packages, toiletries, and free laptops.  To liven up the event, the resource fair included music, lunch, and a recurring raffle for a $25 VISA gift card from FYC, entry was available for youth who visited every table at the resource fair. This energetic in-person event took inspiration from DCFS’s “Transition conferences,” also known as “T-cons.”  These T-cons are an annual resource event held by service providers, connecting youth in foster care to employment, workforce development trainings, and other opportunities, to prepare youth for transition out of care. These environments bring service providers face-to-face with youth in foster care, allowing providers the opportunity to deliver tailored advice and support, guiding youth towards the next steps for their professional and personal development.  SLATE-Z's Foster Youth Subcommittee Co-Chair Jenny Serrano of DCFS stated that this personal, one-to-one engagement was an important feature to emulate when designing the 2021 Foster Youth Resource Fair, delivering the personal and focused attention needed for youth to feel supported and empowered to independently pursue next steps. The success of the Foster Youth Committee resource fair also helped to illuminate the outstanding needs of youth transitioning from service, helping to raise awareness around this issue, on a larger scale, to County partners.

For many of the organizations in attendance, the SLATE-Z and LATTC resource fair was their first in-person event since the start of the pandemic.  SLATE-Z’s Foster Youth Subcommittee looks forward to providing a similar experience for youth in 2022, potentially expanding the concept to support an even broader demographic within South Los Angeles.

50 South LA Youth Leaders to Gain Nonprofit and Workforce Development training through the South Los Angeles Nonprofit Career Apprenticeship Program

In May of 2021, SLATE-Z joined with CDTech’s Public Ally Program to develop the South Los Angeles Nonprofit Career Apprenticeship Program. The South Los Angeles Nonprofit Career Apprenticeship Program is designed to strengthen families, generate civic participation, and provide economic sustainability to support South Los Angeles youth struggling with a multitude of different social and economic stressors, namely in the wake of COVID-19. In effort to stimulate economic activity and inspire workforce development, the South Los Angeles Nonprofit Career Apprenticeship Program will invest in 50 Local “Disconnected” Youth Leaders (aged 18-25) serving South Los Angeles nonprofits by providing them career apprenticeship opportunities within the nonprofit sector. To fulfill the mission of this program, SLATE-Z connected with partners CDTech, Youth Source, EWDD and Work Source as sponsoring organizations to oversee the development of the program.  Through Federal AmeriCorps workforce development and college education grant, CDTech’s Public Ally Los Angeles program plans to provide an array of workforce preparedness tools. Not only will the program’s 50 youth leaders gain real-time workforce experiences, they will also receive:

-        Over 200 hours of nonprofit professional development training to help acclimate participants to the expectations of the non-profit sector

-        120 hours of Leadership development training, which features cultural awareness and competency, intersectional identity, race power and privilege, gender, social and racial justice, facilitation, effective communication, community outreach, community asset mapping, community-based action research and more.

-        Community College enrollment in up to 9 Community College and Cal State transferable units in the Community Planning and Economic Development program at LATTC and over 1,000 more hours of training related to public service training and workforce preparedness.

-        Alumni leadership coordination

The 26 partners matched with an Ally apprentice program will also provide post-apprenticeship training and support services to increase the opportunity for retaining employment.

The direct placement of youth into the nonprofit sector aligns with existing SLATE-Z workforce training initiatives funded by JP Morgan Chase to provide pathways into technology, health and construction careers. SLATE-Z’s hope is that apprentices take the skills, knowledge sets and education attained and apply it to the private, public, and nonprofit sectors going forward, opening a direct connection into the nonprofit for local young adults to earn, learn and give back to their communities hit hard by the pandemic.

The South Los Angeles Non-Profit Career Apprenticeship Program Promotion

LAUSD and Metro to Bring Fareless Transit to Students through June 2023

The Los Angeles Metro system has the highest percentage of low-income riders in the nation -and now, Metro and LAUSD are supporting those riders by providing fareless transit to TK-12 and community college students. SLATE-Z and its partners were key players in this effort, working to catalyze this incredible change. Back in 2018, SLATE-Z with its partners Move-LA, Los Angeles Promise Fund, and Metro worked together to provide low-income students in South LA with free, unlimited access to LA Metro’s countywide bus and rail services. The goals of the project were to (1) improve access to education and job opportunities. (2) reduce transportation emissions, and (3) increase transit ridership. This discrete project was a resounding success with the 11th grade class at Manuel Arts High School, where an early iteration of the pilot (formerly-named the Just Transit Student Pass Program) reduced transportation costs for the 50% of juniors relying on public transportation to get to campus.  

Following the success of the South LA fareless transit pilot program in August 2020, LAUSD and Metro Board of Directors unanimously passed a proposal to scale these efforts, providing TK-12 and community college students throughout the County with unlimited Metro rides from October 2021 through June 2023 (find a list of participating districts here). This exciting expansion of the South LA pilot begins Phase 1 of Metro’s Fareless System Initiative. During this phase, students in eight school districts (and counting) will get a free TAP card that can be used on all Metro-operated transit options, and they will be able to use other municipally operated transit systems in the area for free, including those of Culver City, Norwalk, LADOT’s DASH, Montebello and Santa Monica. 

Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti stressed the importance of mobility and access stating, “Access to our systems should be a right, not a privilege, and the decision to move forward with free ridership for young Angelenos is a critical step toward a system that is accessible to every rider — regardless of zip code or income level” ^1. 

LAUSD officials hope that this initiative will also provide students with better access to all that Los Angeles has to offer, from museums and cultural sites to work and internship opportunities, relieving the financial barrier many LAUSD students face to achieving a more balanced life. Officials also expect this initiative to help cement fareless public transit as a mainstay for future generations of Angelenos. 

The work with students is just the beginning. With 70% of Metro’s rider’s considered “low-income”, the Metro’s Fareless System Initiative sets out to support mobility for LA County residents managing the ever-rising cost of living and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To address these needs, Phase 2 will include non-student, low-income riders, which effort is expected to start in January 2022. 

1. LAUSD. “Los Angeles Unified School District and L.A. Metro Announce Partnership to Provide Free Transit Passes for All Los Angeles Unified Students (10-1-21).” Los Angeles Unified School District , 1 Oct. 2021, https://achieve.lausd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=4466&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=112021&PageID=1.