This December, the Children’s Foundation of America provided holiday gifts to 1,800 displaced children. Youth served were in foster care, residential therapeutic programs, shelters, under-served community centers, or were identified by school districts as in need. This year, we partnered with the following 16 organizations to bring joy and hope to trauma-affected children:

Ark Family Homes
Ontario Montclair School District
McKinley Children’s Center
Uncommon Good
Trinity Youth Services
Oak Grove Center
Inland Empire Residential
Fields Comprehensive
Greater Hope Foundation
Inland Temporary Homes
New Dawn Group Home
San Bernardino County Schools
Upland Unified School District
St. Anne’s
The Veteran’s Center
Pomona Unified School District

In all, 2,365 toys and other items were sorted and distributed by nearly 100 volunteers. Thanks to the community and our business partners, we raised over $19,000 in donations and collected $33,000 worth of toy donations! Thank you to this year’s box sponsors and business partners:

Heirloom Claremont
Claremont Village Marketing Group
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard
Image Source
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
Mijac Alarm
JCM Engineering
NRI Distribution
Scripps College
Claremont Craft Ales
Farmers Insurance
Vinmar Captial Group
Plume Ridge Bottle Shop
Sweet Obsessions Cheesecakes
Chaffey College
White Nelson Diehl Evans
Montclair Place
Foundation 4 Life
CG Realtors

Additionally, Lykes Creatives partnered with us to raise funds at Claremont’s Holiday Promenade. Donors were happy to contribute a few dollars and in exchange for a holiday themed photo by Lykes Creatives!

Without the support and generosity of our Holiday Hero volunteers and donors, the success of this campaign would not be possible. 191 volunteers contributed hours of their time to raise funds at our gift wrapping station at Montclair Place. We are so grateful to the mall for supplying a full store space for us the past two years! Funds raised provided holiday festivities to foster youth and will continue to be used throughout the upcoming year to support special requests for things like contact lenses, prom and graduation attire, yearbooks, music lessons, scholarships and more.

Jenelle Phillips, Development Specialist
Jenelle oversees the day-to-day operations and staffing of the Foundation, which includes fundraising events, volunteer coordination, community outreach and donations. Above all, Jenelle’s focus is to identify and access resources in order to help children heal, learn and thrive. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from California State University Fullerton and has become very involved in the community. She is active in her church, owns an art gallery, organizes the local art walk and is on the executive board of the downtown district’s marketing group.