Wednesday, January 8, 2025
1/8/2025
Project Name: Fontana Community Coalition The city of Fontana is located in the Inland Empire region of California. The demographics are as follows: Hispanic or Latino: 69.3%; White alone, 13.8%; Black: 8.6%; Asian: 6.3%, Two or More Races: 4.7%; American Indian/Alaska Native: .7%; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: .2% The Inland Empire (IE) covers more than 27,000 square miles, and has a population of over 4 million. Most of the area's population is located in southwestern San Bernardino County and northwestern Riverside County. While it is projected to remain California’s fastest-growing region, it is also projected to remain one of the least educated areas of the state with the lowest annual wages in the country. (Kelly, David (April 10, 2008). "Inland Empire's growth to continue". Los Angeles Times). Cities in the IE share common challenges and a regional history of factors that contribute to the risk and impact of youth engaging in alcohol and substance use/abuse, including high levels of poverty, poor youth outcomes, low educational attainment, and crime. Local school districts such as the Fontana USD are persistently and significantly under-resourced. Many community agencies are working on tight budgets and unable to meet the needs. •Only 23% of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher •Three out of five Inland Empire children are English Language Learners, and many live in poverty: 79.7% participate in the free/reduced meal program compared to 55.8% nationally •Academic achievement is low: only 50% of the schools have made Adequate Yearly Progress and the high school dropout rate is 20.6% compared to the state rate of 14.8%. The Fontana Community Coalition will address the public health problems associated with youth substance use by empowering youth to be their own change-makers, catalysts and sustainers of community change community change through: 1) involving them as active partners in the coalition processes and activities, 2) building capacity among the youth to identify effective alcohol prevention strategies, 3) providing technical assistance to youth on how to create media campaigns and increase awareness with creative messaging strategies across social media platforms and flyer dissemination, and 4) giving youth the tools to create prevention campaigns. Additionally, we will work on the underlying issues that contribute to youth substance use such as lack of protective factors and cultural stigma by collaborating with partner organizations to offer supportive and educational workshops/presentations on topics such as healthy coping mechanisms and mental health. The final facet of our approach is empowering youth and coalition members to support policy-driven solutions to Fontana’s community substance use needs, including the enforcement of in-place policies, such as: collaborating with the Chamber of Commerce to identify on-sale establishments and liquor stores that may be interested in participating in an underage drinking prevention campaigns, such as sticker shock, and working with on-sale alcohol establishments to enforce ID checking behaviors among their servers.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).