Thank You
On this day of Thanksgiving, Jubilee Consortium wants to express its gratitude to everyone that has supported us and helped us grow in our efforts to reduce the inordinately high level of chronic health conditions (i.e., hypertension, diabetes, obesity) that are prevalent in low-income communities around Los Angeles County. You have truly helped us to make individuals, families and neighborhoods healthy and strong. For that, we want to give you thanks and briefly share some of our achievements this past year.
Expansion of Jubilee Sites
For many years, Jubilee Consortium based its program and community-building at three different sites: St. Luke’s in Long Beach; Holy Faith in Inglewood and St. Stephen’s in Hollywood. In 2009, we doubled the number of sites where we offer health-oriented education and exercise classes several times per week. Our new partners include Grant Elementary School, All Saints Church in Highland Park and Trinity Church in East Hollywood. We are especially excited about Trinity Church who, this year, accepted the invitation to become a member institution of Jubilee. Now, in addition to being a place where Jubilee programming happens, the community of Trinity Church also has chosen to embrace, as their own, Jubilee’s mission to make healthy and just communities.
Additional Classes
With new sites come new classes. When Jubilee began, we had about three classes per week, and not every week. Now we have over 35 class offerings each week. Nearly every evening at each of Jubilee’s six sites, you will find dozens of people doing aerobics, practicing yoga, dancing salsa, doing cardio-boxing, learning how to cook healthy meals, becoming more aware of health issues, and developing their own capacity and enhancing their skills for community leadership.
Operation Frontline
Last year, in partnership with the Share Our Strength and the Center for Community and Family Services, Jubilee launched a new program called Operation Frontline - Los Angeles. Operation Frontline is a hands-on educational program that aims to teach low-income individuals and families to prepare healthy, nutritional meals on very limited budgets. The six-week cooking courses involve professional chefs and nutritionists. Jubilee has already hosted four of these life-changing classes at its sites and intends to make the Operation Frontline classes a regular offering in the community.
Adding the Episcopal Urban Intern Program
This past year, Jubilee took on a new program: the Episcopal Urban Intern Program (EUIP), a year-long service learning project which aims to cultivate leadership capacities of young people. Each fall, EUIP gathers a new class of young adults from across the United States to live in community and to work for change in some of Los Angeles County’s most innovative and effective social service agencies. EUIP is part of the Episcopal Service Corps (ESC), a network of young adult programs within the Episcopal Church that work for social change and personal transformation through service to others. Next year, Jubilee hopes to expand the program and open a new community house in Long Beach for an additional class of interns to live.
New Churches and Schools
Jubilee is currently talking and planning with at least six other schools and churches, from Lincoln Heights to Downtown to Hawthorne about launching and developing programming at their sites. There is no shortage of need across Los Angeles County and more and more institutions are realizing the benefits of partnering with Jubilee to promote health and wellness in their communities.
Thank You
Thanks for you commitment to helping us make our neighborhoods life-giving, health-embracing communities where everyone can thrive. Happy Thanksgiving!