Assistance League of Santa Ana
Transforming Lives • Strengthening Community
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Assistance League of Santa Ana exists to serve the unique needs and challenges of students, children, families and seniors in Santa Ana, California where one out of every 5.1 residents live in poverty. Our volunteers make Assistance League of Santa Ana so remarkable by being motivated to effect change in the community with services that are locally designed, funded, and organized to fit this goal. We were organized in 1935 and incorporated in 1938, and are one of the longest serving nonprofits in Orange County, California. Our sole purpose is to provide philanthropic services to meet the challenges posed by a diverse array of compelling individual and community needs in the city. We provide compassionate and caring services through Operation School Bell. a full-service Dental Center, a college scholarship program, food distribution projects, and a number of programs that assist with the specific social needs of the twenty-first century.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Operation School Bell
Operation School Bell, our signature philanthropy, provided uniforms, shoes, socks and underwear, jackets, and backpacks filled with supplies and a reading book, to students in grades K-8 with referrals from Santa Ana Unified School District staff.
KIA Dental Center
Our dental center serves Santa Ana residents and surrounding communities. We provide care to all ages. We are a Denti-Cal (Medi-Cal) provider and offer low cost care to uninsured children and adults.
Emergency Food Bank and SOK it to Hunger
Emergency Food Bank - We provide food every month to an Emergency Food Bank which serves about 40 people a month when they run out of food and are unable to obtain food from a locally scheduled food bank. Families are sent to the Santa Ana Unified School District Wellness Center at Lathrop Intermediate with a referral from the school staff. Any family can receive food.
SOK it to Hunger - Three times a year, before school breaks, we provide food for about 125 families at a distribution site on a local school campus.
Gift of Giving
Once a year - in December, we receive information from the Migrant Education worker with the Santa Ana Unified School District about migrant families in need for the holidays. These family names and their "wish list" for each member are given to people and/or groups to adopt by purchasing gifts for each family member. Wrapped presents are brought to our establishment and given to families who are invited to a holiday party at our site. Each family also receives a voucher for food for a holiday meal.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of children who receive new clothing
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Operation School Bell
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
We are the only non-profit offering free school clothes for the Santa Ana Unified School District. The District helps to support us with its effort. Students from Pre-K to 8th grade.
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Ethnic and racial groups, At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people, Immigrants and migrants, Incarcerated people
Related Program
Operation School Bell
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We find volunteers from our organization and the community and business groups. The school district also assists us with support.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Assistance League of Santa Ana seeks to transform lives by strengthening community.
Our longevity is a testimony to our integrity and authenticity.
Assistance League of Santa Ana believes the children is devoted to children and familiesin need. Our programs are designed to give them a strong start and a chance for success in the future. Our signature program is Operation School Bell. A new uniform enables students to connect to school. They feel more scholarly and proud to be here. It puts children from low income homes on a more level playing field. We also provide scholarships to outstanding graduating students identified by their high school.
Hundreds of families in Santa Ana are identified as having limited or uncertain access to adequate food. Our SOC it to Hunger program stocks a food pantry serving local elementary schools and provides a free food event during the weeks school is not in session.
We bring the Christmas spirit to migrant farm workers' families and to hundreds of seniors at a local long term care facility.
We identify social issues and serve survivors of human trafficking, recovering addicts, victims of domestic violence.
Dental care is often a low priority for poor families. Our dental center informs and educates, as well as treats patient. We have expanded our services to help the entire family now including low income Seniors.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Assistance League of Santa Ana members are united in purpose and dedicated to making local lives in Santa Ana, California better through programs funded through donations and carried out by our member volunteers.
Operation School Bell: Our signature program provides uniforms, shoes, socks, underwear, jackets, good grooming kits, backpacks filled with school supplies and a grade appropriate book annually to 3,500 students in grades K-8.
Katharine Irvine Dental Center: To improve dental health for eligible children, Assistance League of Santa Ana accepts Denti-Cal and offers high-value, low cost care to students in grades K-12.
College Scholarships: College scholarships are given to graduating seniors within the Santa Ana School District’s CTE (Career Technical Education) program. With a donation from one of our former scholarship winners, this year we will offer more scholarships to deserving high school seniors at three local high schools.
Gift of Giving: Over forty underserved migrant farmworker families in Santa Ana are presented with gifts at a festive Christmas party.
SOC it to Hunger: Through this program, we feed the needy by stocking a food pantry at a Santa Ana elementary school and holding food distribution events when school is not in session.
French Park Program: Over 200 impoverished senior patients receive gifts and cheerful attention at Christmas time.
Outreach Programs: Our reach into the community helps girls rescued from human trafficking, provides literacy initiatives.
Our scholarship winners receive care packages during finals’ week. We also assist local social services agencies.
This year we are focusing on the Dental Center. Dental is one of the most underserved. Dental Health as you probable know is expensive even with social programs. Many of our residents are not able to afford this important services especially our Senior Citizens. We are focusing on education, low cost services and yearly visits.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Assistance League of Santa Ana believes in prudent fiscal and physical management, transparent internal and external relationships, viable program assessment and reasoned evaluation of personnel and organizational performance.
We have a large campus in the heart of Santa Ana, California. The facility includes an area to store and clothe children in our Operation School Bell program, and a full service dental center.
Our Thrift Shop serves the neighborhood and surrounding community and provides funding for our programs, More funding comes from Head Start, which leases a building on our property and provides additional funding for our programs.
Other sources of sustainable income include interest on an investment account, annual fundraisers and generous donors.
Each member is incredibly generous with their time, talent and money. Each one is imaginative and motivated to effect change in Santa Ana. Member volunteers, aided by individuals from the community,work hard to get the job done, whatever it is and whatever it takes!
Like many volunteer organizations today, we have an aging membership, but we are using creativity and unique thinking to engage new generations of members and community volunteers by developing procedures and processes that appeal to them.
We provide fair and equitable treatment for our members and community volunteers, the recipients of our services and our donors and funders.
We are now focusing more on diversity and reaching more heavily in the community. Communication is key and now we have more Spanish Speaking members who can help. Santa Ana also has Chinese speaking residents. We are looking into parnering with the city to get translators
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Assistance League of Santa Ana has received almost $75,000 in grant money so far in 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Santa Ana Unified School District gave $44,000 from their McKinney-Vento funding to Assistance League of Santa Ana to provide uniforms for homeless children. There are 6,000 homeless children in Santa Ana.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Assistance League of Santa Ana
Board of directorsas of 01/22/2024
Judi Fine
Assistance League of Santa Ana
Term: 2023 - 2024
Kay Housley
Judi Fine
Joyce Rohrbaugh
Kathy Masanga
Melinda Jordan Heathcock
Gayle McLean
karen mitendoft
Tabitha Hunter
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes