Community Center
The ReIMAGINE Mack Road Foundation works closely with the Mack Road Partnership (MRP). However, it is a separate entity funded through grants and corporate sponsors. The MRP staff each donates a portion of their time to the Foundation, and local youth are hired on a part time basis to staff programs and work with their peers to build job readiness and social emotional skills.
The work the Foundation does is important and touches the community deeply. In 2014, we launched Sacramento Summer Night Lights (SSNL) and opened a small community center at Center Parkway and Mack Road. Additional in-kind donations and partnerships with Kaiser Permanente and the Sacramento Kings allowed us to install capital improvements including two outdoor basketball courts and the groundwork for a soccer field. In 2015, we expanded SSNL, renovated our community center, installed a playground with help from Car Max and KaBOOM.org and expanded our community center programming. In 2016, we saw the completion of our dance studio and further expansions of our ongoing programing.
Since establishment in 2014, our community center served over 25,000 children with our homework lab, chess club, dance class and our amazing mobile repair bicycle program. Since 2014, our flagship program SSNL has served more than 50,000 individuals by providing a safe place for families to gather Thursday through Saturday nights during the summer. Over that period, we have provided more than 40,000 free dinners, art classes, sports leagues and gang intervention opportunities. And, we created 140 jobs for youth in the 95823 zip code. These are amazing results in a very short time and we are just getting started.
Successes
What was once the most crime-filled corner in Sacramento has been transformed into a safe space for families to gather. Since 2013, we have embarked on a plan to improve the physical location of our community center because attendance at programs and events has risen year over year, reinforcing the need for additional programming.
Programs
Homework Assistance Lab
Program Description
Homework Assistance Lab provides FREE tutoring on all subjects, with an emphasis on math and reading comprehension.
Program Successes
Our tutors instill confidence in students and foster leadership and team skills. Our homework lab allows children to be successful by providing a safe and quiet place to complete coursework resulting in improved school attendance.
Mobile Bicycle Repair Workshop
Program Description
Children and adults who perform four hours of community service qualify to receive a salvaged bike. Through our partnerships with the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento Regional Transit, the Foundation receives unclaimed property, which we then refurbish and deploy into the community. Funding is needed to purchase parts necessary for the rebuilding of complete bicycles and to compensate our bicycle repair guru. By participating in this program, our local youth learn valuable bicycle repair skills as well as bicycle safety protocols.
Program Successes
Youth are taught marketable job skills qualifying them for paid employment as a bicycle mechanic. Unclaimed property that typically winds up in landfills gains new life as reliable transportation to work and school. Social-emotional skills learned through working towards a shared goal aids in the management of emotions and the ability to establish rewarding relationships with others.
Sac Valley Mobile Pregnancy Clinic
Program Description
Our partnership with Sac Valley Mobile Pregnancy Clinic provides FREE health screenings, including pregnancy testing, STD testing and additional prenatal resources.
Program Successes
Women who would not otherwise have access to prenatal care are able to obtain services and referrals through our free, on-site mobile clinic.
Music Program
Program Description
In partnership with BTU Arts, children are taught to read music notes and play music for free after school once a week. As of now, guitar classes are available. If interest in other musical instrument is expressed, more classes will be offered. For more info, contact BTU Arts at (916)399-3200 or at Info@BTUArts.org
Program Successes
Children with music interest and children who want to participate in extracurricular activities are able to do so.
Soccer Program
Program Description
Our partnership with Street Soccer USA allows a structured and exciting environment for children of all ages to learn, play, and build soccer skills free of cost.
Program Successes
Children with sport and soccer interest and children who want to participate in extracurricular activities are able to do so.
Summer Feed Program
Program Description
Through a partnership with the Elk Grove Unified School System, our site is able to function as a summer lunch program. Children up to the age of 18 may attend and receive a nutritious meal, Monday through Friday during the summer. Typically, this program serves almost 1,400 children each summer.
Program Successes
Children who otherwise go hungry in the summer months are now nourished and able to enjoy time at our community center with their friends.
Dance Team
Program Description
We encourage our co-ed youth to develop their social-emotional skills through dance and artistic expression.
Program Successes
Lasting friendships are built based on a shared love of dance. Families who do not have the financial means to partake in for-cost dance instruction have realized the same benefits through our free program. Our local youth receive the added benefit of participating in physical exercise.
Chess Club
Program Description
During our weekly chess club, students are encouraged to learn critical thinking through the game of chess. More advanced students tutor and encourage beginners, while our chess coach ensures more senior students are challenged to “up” their game.
Program Successes
Bringing chess to our community center has taught our youth how to problem solve more strategically. Playing chess has proven to increase IQ and reading scores in students. Chess also helps activate the creative brain. Using chess as a metaphor for life decision-making, we have observed our youth making better decisions and using critical-thinking patterns.
Sacramento Summer Night Lights (11-12 weeks)
Program Description
Sacramento Summer Night Lights (SSNL) is a violence-reduction program disguised as fun. A product of multi-sector collaboration among various stakeholders, SSNL runs for 14 weeks during the summer months in one of the city’s highest crime locations, Center Parkway and Mack Road. By creating a safe environment, the program fosters community growth and trust, which results in a drastic reduction in violence. As this large-scale program requires additional staffing, the ReIMAGINE Mack Road Foundation hires youth and adults within the local zip code to help run the program.
Program Successes
Since 2014, SSNL has provided more than 27,000 free meals to more than 40,000 participants and has created 128 jobs in the 95823 zip code. In addition, the business community has enjoyed a lower crime rate in each of the years that SSNL has been in existence. Youth squad staff and leaders are provided with job readiness training and often receive leads for jobs in the local area.
Farmers Market (summer/seasonal)
Program Description
With a new partner organization and a new location, the ReIMAGINE Mack Road Foundation and Mack Road Partnership relaunched our farmers market, now called the Valley Mack Farmers Market with new flare in the Summer of 2018. We are proud to introduce our market partners The Alchemist, CDC.
The Valley Mack Farmers Market opens each June and runs through the end of September in the parking lot of Furniture USA across from South Sacramento Kaiser Medical Center. Operating hours are from 9:30am-1:30pm every Friday. We have local farmers and artisans from the community selling produce, flowers, and crafts. In addition, we hire local youths to help set up and run the market. The Farmers Market accepts WIC, SNAP, and EBT/CalFresh and match up to $20 for EBT users – that’s extra money they get for just using their EBT and the highest match for any Farmers Market within the Sacramento County.
Program Successes
Within the past 5 years, the Market increased community members and employees access to healthy food, produce consumption, and helped families with EBT/CalFresh and WIC. Just in the past 3 years, we have matched EBT users a total of $5,103 and sold over 19,000 pounds of produce!
This seasonal market is made possible through the support of and generous contribution from our community partners at Kaiser Permanente.
