Grant helps Coachella Valley area nonprofit expand its cultural diversity

Offering children a protective, comfortable and safe environment for learning is key at Escuela De La Raza Unida, a Blythe-based 501(c)(3). Coming off the pandemic years, the nonprofit is optimistic about new endeavors and opportunities to reach more children in the area.

"I think what most people may not realize about Escuela De La Raza Unida is that it is diverse in its services," says Executive Director Rigoberto Garnica. "When we first started in the early '70s, we were an alternative community private school, serving K-12. We lasted about 30 years doing that."

Things changed in the 2000s when Garnica and others on board realized there was a great need for pre-school in the area. It was at that time that the organization pivoted to focus on caring and educating pre-school children.

"We assist modern- to low-income individuals that need childcare and child development," Garnica says. "And we are all so much into it. It's a full-time job because there's such a need for more childcare. The good thing is that the State of California is generous in that respect with their funding."

So are other local contributors. Recently Escuela De La Raza Unida received a grant from The CIELO Fund through Inland Empire Community Foundation (IECF). The Signature Fund, which launched in 2022, is designed to invest in organizations, initiatives and ideas that are led by, and serve, Latinos in the Inland Empire.

For Escuela De La Raza Unida, the grant became an opportunity to offer its students something memorable.

"Because of the funding, we were able to get an instructor to come down and organize a ballet folklórico group for our community," Garnica says. "Things changed when the pandemic hit. The community was in chaos. We had to close for a month. The state continued funding us to offer child development, and thank God that they did, and the recent grant is helping us stay up and running."

With this sense of hope, the organization plans to keep leaning into its main mission of providing a non-traditional educational environment to all children and their families. The ripple effect of that, and, perhaps, even a greater hope, is that those families may prosper socially, economically and civically.

One of the organization's tentpoles, in fact, is to offer multi-cultural music and dance experiences to children and their families, which will also assist in achieving academic excellence and a deeper appreciation for humanity.

"There are about 24 students in the ballet folklórico group," Garnica says. "They practice every Saturday. Last summer, the instructor took one of the girls that was dancing with the group and her family to a national ballet folklórico conference in McAllen, Texas. They attended the conference, the workshops, and experienced different dances throughout the regions of Mexico and the Southwest too.

"Because of the generous funding, we were able to facilitate that," he adds. "This helps with the involvement in early child development."

These are part of the great strides the organization has made since its inception more than 50 years ago.

"There was a crisis at the time," Garnica says. "We only had one public school district here. And at the middle school, we had a terrible administrator who was not friendly or community minded. At one point, he refused to celebrate Cinco de Mayo on campus. He didn't have speakers at the middle school. Then he manhandled one of the local students who was organizing the Cinco de Mayo festival.

"There was a walkout that lasted for about six weeks," he adds. "So, they organized a private school, where if students had problems with the local middle school, they were welcome to come to the private school. And it was organized. And that was the beginning."

With no end in sight.

Learn more at escueladelarazaunida.org.

Visit iegives.org.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Grant helps Coachella Valley area nonprofit expand cultural diversity