CLF Step Forward Emergency Family Fund

The new CLF’s Step Forward Family Emergency Fund for COVID-19 Relief, started last March right after the lock-down, has the main, over-reaching goal of helping 25 of families in our Vita Network, as well as other underserved families in LA county, survive the Pandemic intact, healthy and well, and a little more financially stabilized for the next several months, to help them make it through this very difficult and challenging time.The CLF has been raising funds since late March of 2020, and has been giving out direct financial assistance and grocery gift cards to the families in our Vita Network, (in the forms of $500 and $1000 checks-in-hand) to use towards crucial expenses such as rent, groceries and basic bills. In light of the COVID-19 crisis, the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation began immediately raising funds to provide direct financial relief to the families in their Vita Network, as well as other families in LA County-who were greatly at-risk of becoming food insecure, and even homeless. This fund is unique in that the relief is distributed with direct funds-checks to the under-served, BIPOC, Latinx and low-income families we serve.

From CLF Founder, Maria D’Angelo: “Our adopted families in Our Vita Network have needed more support than ever. The generosity of a great many people and organizations has enabled us to help them to remain in their homes or apartments with our financial assistance. When Covid first began, I started calling each family in our program. The first family I called was X’s family, and he himself came to the phone, so depressed that both he and his wife had lost their jobs, and he did not think they would have enough money to pay rent or for food. I found myself saying, “If we send you $1000, will that help? There was a long silence, and then a stifled sob. I was so taken back, I did not know how to respond except to say, “You will have the check tomorrow!” The next family I called was a young mother of three we had recently adopted into our program, whose daughter we had met at our wilderness camp the previous summer from Telfair Elementary in Pacoima. She had also lost her job and had gone to donate blood the previous two Sundays to make some extra money to buy groceries for the family. That one truly broke my heart. I knew we had to get very busy.” The CLF’s Vita Network Program was originally known as their Adopt-A-Family Program, started in 1994 when they began moving homeless families from shelters into new homes, providing them with move-in costs, financial stipends for the first year, clothing, furnishings, household goods and appliances and emotional support.

With amazing support from great friends like the McHugh-O’Donovan Foundation, the Oder Family Foundation, the Open Hearts Foundation, Rite Aid, Capital One, Santa Monica Rotary Club and the Venable Foundation, as well as so many individuals and friends, the CLF has currently distributed over $150,000 in direct Financial relief aid to families in LA County and in our Vita Network, as well as additional, emergency college scholarships to students in our Care through College Program, by Spring of 2023! These funds will continue to directly and greatly aid families in need, and have provided each family with monthly checks in the amounts of $500 to $1,000 through the pandemic, and distributed Emergency Funding to college scholarship recipients in our Care through College Program, as well as other greatly in-need families across Los Angeles. (You can hear from some videos of these families here.) Entire families were saved from food insecurity and homelessness because of our Step Forward Emergency Family Fund for COVID-19 Relief, and we want to continue to be able to help them survive the pandemic fully intact, and fully able to “move forward” with their lives. In addition, CLF has collected and distributed thousands of dollars in in-kind donations of gifts, baby and children’s clothing, beauty products and toiletries, school supplies & backpacks for many underserved families and families living in homeless shelters throughout Los Angeles.

The majority of our families are single parents, most of whom have two jobs. Our College Scholarship recipients are still also in great need of assistance. They all still truly in need URGENT need of funding and emergency aid. And the Children's Lifesaving Foundation needs to continue to help these families and college students through as long as there is the need…