Lotus Bloom

Lotus Bloom's Vision is that every child and their family, regardless of socioeconomic background, race or religion has access to a quality early childhood development programs and the knowledge, support and confidence to raise a healthy, happy child. We believe that healthy families lead to healthy communities. When parents are able to advocate for themselves and their family, they are more likely to also advocate for their communities to be improved with quality schools, safe streets, access to basic needs and family friendly amenities and more.

Our playgroups are the cornerstone of our services, where we provide a safe and healthy environment for children and families to thrive.

We embed case management, resource and referrals, and other family support and empowerment activities into the playgroup time, and are thus able to create deep connections and support families who might not otherwise reach out for help.

95% of Lotus Bloom staff are Oakland residents, and over half started out as participating parents in our programs. Our diverse and dedicated staff members are thus able to connect with families using both their educational knowledge, on the job learnings, and their lived experiences.

Lotus Bloom looks to the Family Strengthening Approach, as outlined by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), as the cornerstone of our playgroups. This is a research-informed, strengths-based approach that identifies family attributes which simultaneously prevent or mitigate the effect of exposure to stressful life events, and build a family environment that promotes optimal child development. Our playgroup curriculum seeks to develop these attributes and strengths in participating families.

As a network of established and trusted resource centers rooted in Oakland for over 10 years, we believe our continued success lies in the heart of the community in which we serve. By learning from, respecting and empowering the caregivers in our diverse communities, we are able to provide a healthy learning environment for our children.

Lotus Bloom is a leader in the field multigenerational playgroup program development. As a founding member of the Oakland Family Resource Center Network, we work with other resource centers to support low income families to create protective factors, enabling them to combat the risk factors that interfere with caring for their children in a multigenerational and multicultural setting. We are known as the leading Family Resource Center offering high-touch education and support for early childhood development to low income, at promise families - simultaneously with community building, wellness education, case management and referrals.

The organization’s original design developed from the result of a survey of 60 San Antonio district families in July 2006.
In August 2006, after the Making Connections Early Childhood Workgroup visited the Excelsior Center in San Francisco (which our director Angela Howard helped establish) the group requested the leadership of Lotus Bloom to develop a family resource center similar to the Excelsior Center in the San Antonio neighborhood. Following three months of extensive planning and community outreach, funded in part by a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Lotus Bloom opened its doors at Oakland Ready to Learn in October 2006.

In January 2009, Lotus Bloom built a multi-cultural family resource center from the ground up. The space became a vibrant thriving hub for families to gather, learn, and grow and was voted Best New Space For Tots by the East Bay Express newspaper. In the same year we formed our Board of Directors.

In 2012, Lotus Bloom received the Excellence Award from the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the UCB Haas School of Business

In 2013, Lotus Bloom expanded to open Room to Bloom in deep East Oakland's Castlemont neighborhood. In the same year, founding CEO Angela Louie Howard received the Jefferson Award for Community Service

In 2016 Lotus Bloom grew to serve over 1,000 community members from sites in Downtown, San Antonio and East Oakland neighborhoods, as well as a school readiness program in the Allendale neighborhood.

In 2018 Lotus Bloom officially opened the San Antonio Family Resource Center in partnership with All IN Alameda County, the East Bay Asian Youth Coalition, and TRYBE Inc., a grassroots neighborhood organization serving families.

LB seeks to grow the capacity of our organization to broaden our commitment to Oakland neighborhoods with programming and engagement informed by the hopes and dreams of families in the communities that we serve.