Long Beach Gives, the annual citywide online fundraising campaign, has raised over $13 million for 450+ local nonprofits since 2019, including many based in Downtown. It’s back this year, starting with a Sept. 17 launch party and culminating in a 24-hour giving day on Sept. 24.
Private donations are appreciated more than ever as federal funding for nonprofits shrinks nationwide. A contribution to a Downtown nonprofit could support a weekly neighborhood farmers market, provide free eye exams to youth in need, give a safe space and a hot meal to those less fortunate, and enable artists, journalists, and broadcasters to inform the community and express themselves.
Here is a closer look at four of the many nonprofits serving Downtown and the broader Long Beach community, and how donations can help support their work and impact.
DOWNTOWN RESIDENTIAL COUNCIL (DRC)
The DRC was successfully providing a framework for the Downtown Long Beach neighborhood associations to leverage each other’s knowledge and resources to drive community development in their respective neighborhoods – until COVID hit. DRC neighborhood outreach manager Pat Welch explained:
“Everything kind-of collapsed. Two neighborhood associations resurrected themselves. Others struggled or ceased to exist. We basically started from scratch. We have finally gotten to a position where all of the associations are really ready to blossom. We’ve built up a great infrastructure with emails and our website. We’ve come up with some great messaging, and now we’re ready to kick-start these neighborhood associations to another level. Donations will greatly improve our ability to do this.
“A lot of residents, tenants and owners don’t realize how important their voice is,” Welch added. “If those people speak up, they can change the course of events in Downtown. One voice can be ignored, a chorus cannot be overlooked.”
Click here to donate to the Downtown Residential Council.
Downtown’s hyperlocal radio station is rapidly raising its profile! The FM station has held onto its original location below Shannon’s on Pine as it gets comfortable in a bigger space at Studio 111. This spot will continue to serve as the KLBP newsroom as the station expands again, into the former Acres of Books building next month. There’s a strong possibility that it will be sharing the space with another local media outlet within a few months.
“Primarily, we serve as a training ground for people making media here in Long Beach, especially when it comes to news,” said Danny Lemos, general manager of KLBP and board president of Long Beach Television & Media. “We’ll never be CNN, but we will train the next generation of reporters for CNN and other media outlets. We take students from CSULB and LBCC, and they provide the news that you hear on our station.”
KLBP, which started with used, donated equipment, will level up with state-of-the-art gear when it expands into the former Acres of Books building. “All donations go right into the radio station,” Lemos explained. “We receive no money from the city or federal funding. We survive on the money that we raise, and our generous monthly subscribers.”
To donate to KLBP, click here.
“We’re founded with the simple but important idea that DTLB deserves a dedicated investment in the places and experiences that bring people together,” said Jeremy Ancalade, DTLB Alliance Vice President of Administration & Finance who also serves as Executive Director of The Downtown Difference. “That’s truly what the goal of this agency is, to bring opportunities for neighbors to connect, to make public spaces welcoming, inclusive, and vibrant.”
These opportunities happen on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. There’s the monthly cleanup at Lincoln Park, and the recent installation of 20 new “Mutt Mitt” Pet Waste Stations. Long Beach Lights, the public light installation on The Promenade, will run through October. “Our goal is to have a big mural in each of the seven Downtown neighborhoods,” Ancalade added. “The North Pine mural at Pacific and 4th is complete, the East Village mural is currently in the works, and we’ll wrap up the calendar year with the Downtown Waterfront mural.
“Every neighborhood matters,” he continued. “We all want a sense of cohesion, a sense of truly belonging. We want people to see themselves when they walk through our public spaces.”
Click here to make a donation to The Downtown Difference.
This nonprofit is all about growth: the many crops harvested throughout the year, the training of transition-age youth of diverse abilities who work there, and the growth and expansion of the urban farm itself since it began as a third-of-an-acre Downtown greenspace on the site of a former parking lot near 7th Street and the 710 freeway.
“We continue to utilize the original Downtown space for planting and to provide essential knowledge such as ‘soft work skills’ – adhering to a schedule, following multi-step tasks, and so on. We needed additional room and it just so happens that the Growing Experience Urban Farm in North Long Beach became available,” said co-founder and president Lindsay Smith. “We are now the operators of the production farm side, which is five acres. We’re managing lots of fruit acres – there are over 320 fruit trees. There’s a massive greenhouse, a building with a small kitchen, infrastructure for a plant nursery, and a huge chicken coop.”
This is a real, working production farm that requires heavy-duty equipment. “We are in need of a mini-tractor to help in the cultivation of seasonal veggies and to work the soil up to where it should be,” Smith explained. “We need some harvesting equipment, and a nice soil/compost donation to revive the soil & fertilize the fruit trees. These additions would really go a long way.”
To help Sowing Seeds of Change grow, donate here.