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The following highlights contain additional information on selected grants from the Zellerbach Family Foundation's 2006 annual report:



Project WHAT! stands for We’re Here and Talking: 2.4 Million of Us, which is roughly the number of children in this country with a parent in prison or jail.  Project WHAT! youth support each other and educate others about the strengths and needs of children who have to experience parental incarceration. In 2007, WHAT! participants produced a Resource Guide, available at http://www.community-works-ca.org/programs/projectwhat.html 



The Center for Young Women’s Development has produced a manual and advocacy tool for young mothers involved in the juvenile justice system. This book was written entirely by young women with the help of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Legal Services for Children, and The Girls Justice Initiative.  To download the book, go to http://www.cywd.org/Brochure/MyLifeChoseMe.pdf









June Jordan School for Equity – Parent Leadership Program aims to promote student achievement by forging genuine partnerships between students’ parents and the school and by developing the leadership skills of parents so they can become active participants in the school and district-level improvement efforts.

More information on June Jordan School for Equity can be found at www.jjse.org.







The Marsh Youth Theater was founded in 2001 with a lead grant from The Zellerbach Foundation.  Located in the Marsh Theater in the Mission District of San Francisco, the Marsh Youth Theater offers year round theater and arts programming for local youth ranging from the first to the tenth grade many of whom are English language learners.

In 2006 the Marsh Youth Theater mounted an original play based on the book Don Quixote. In honor of the 400th anniversary of the original work by Miguel de Cervantes, the play, Dona Quixote was written by the Marsh Youth Theater director Emily Klion and Lisa Quoresimo , with original music by Emily Klion and M. Mckaig, accompanied by the classical guitar music of Ricardo Diaz.

More information about the Marsh Youth Theater can be found at www.themarsh.org.


San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership (SFCIPP) is a coalition of social services providers, representatives of government bodies, advocates, and others concerned about children of incarcerated parents and their families. SFCIPP’s work is guided by the Bill of Rights for Children of Incarcerated Parents, which can be viewed at www.sfcipp.org. 

In 2005, SFCIPP launched the Rights to Realities Initiative, with the long-term goal of ensuring that all in San Francisco children with an arrested or incarcerated parent have their needs met and rights respected. After the San Francisco Board of Supervisors endorsed the Bill of Rights, the Rights to Realities Initiative began by working with the San Francisco Department and the Department of Human Services to develop a protocol aimed at keeping children safe and informed at the time of a parent’s arrest.

More recently, the Initiative is focusing on increasing opportunities for children to visit their parents at the local jail and state prison facilities.


Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network is a collaborative of parent groups and community organizations dedicated to working for better schools, quality childcare and preschool, and authentic parent representation in institutions and policy arenas that affect children’s lives. PLAN increases the effectiveness of parent organizations by providing networking, training sessions, capacity-building, and collaborative civic engagement opportunities for parent leaders and community organizations.

More information on Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network can be found at www.parentactionnet.org.



The name Project AVARY stands for Alternative Ventures for At Risk Youth. Project Avary’s mission is to cultivate a community of support for children whose parents are imprisoned or otherwise involved with the criminal justice system. 

The arts component of Project Avary was founded in 2000 with a lead grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation. This grant enabled  Project Avary to hire an arts teacher to accompany the youth on their adventure days, to think about what they had experienced and to paint or draw those experiences or to celebrate them through the performing arts.

More information about Project AVARY can be found at www.projectavary.com.



Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES) has perfected a business model for “least toxic,” eco-friendly housecleaning cooperatives that are owned and operated by low-income Latina immigrant women. “Least toxic” housecleaning employs cleaning methods and products that cause the least harm possible to both the user and the environment. By providing education, management support, and technical assistance to develop and expand the cooperatives, WAGES creates dignified jobs and offers a viable alternative to the low-paying, exploitative, and unsafe work opportunities usually available to low-income immigrants. The worker/owners in WAGES’ cooperatives earn well above market wages, have a voice in their workplace, and form communities of mutual support.

With general support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, WAGES’s Oakland-based coop, Natural Home Cleaning, tripled its sales and doubled its membership in the past year. Eco-care, WAGES’s cooperative in Morgan Hill, graduated from the WAGES technical assistance program and became a stand-alone, self-sustaining business in 2004. The coop has flourished and continues to provide economic security for its growing membership. The recently launched Peer Leadership Program brings together women from each of the three Bay Area WAGES cooperatives to learn leadership and communication skills that will help them train new coop members in the future.

To learn more, visit the WAGES website at www.wagescooperatives.org. The site contains contact information for scheduling service in the Bay Area, lessons about how “eco-friendly cleaning” protects the health of workers and clients, and information about cooperative businesses.


(Above photo: Peer Leaders and WAGES’ training facilitators relax after a weekend retreat to develop coop members’ leadership skills.)

Community mental health services are experiencing a workforce crisis, a growing chasm between the supply and demand for qualified workers to serve in the public sector. The Greater Bay Area Mental Health Workforce Collaborative is a joint effort of public and community-based mental health agencies and educational institutions to increase and improve the supply of workers for public mental health systems in the Bay Area. The Collaborative is serving as a model for regional partnerships across California and nationally. ZFF has supported the development of this Collaborative over the past several years.

To view the Collaborative’s membership list, work plan, and other information, visit www.mhewc.org. A major product of the Collaborative is the Mental Health Workforce Website (www.mentalhealthworkforce.com), an interactive compendium of mental health education programs, career and agency descriptions, employment opportunities, and more.


Think College Now – Family College Going Initiative is an innovative new project that will develop a replicable model for how K-12 schools can collaborate with colleges and universities to integrate low-income parents into programs that create “college-going cultures” at home and at school.

Think College Now is a “new small autonomous” public elementary school located in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.

More information on Think College Now can be found at www.thinkcollegenow.org.


Congregations Organizing for Renewal – Parents Organizing for Better Schools works to improve the quality of public education in the southern Alameda County communities of Union City and Hayward through a multi-year initiative that will develop parent leaders, engage parents in school reform efforts, and create strategic alliances with other community groups working to promote parent participation in schools.

More information on Congregations Organizing for Renewal can be found at www.corcommunity.org.


A Home Within/Fostering Art provides free counseling services by a doctor of pediatric psychiatry to youth who are in or leaving the foster care system. The needs of these youth are myriad as they face uncertain futures on their own.

A Home Within engaged some of their clients in a photography program called Fostering Art and mounted an exhibit at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Following that original exhibit in 2004, the Zellerbach Family Foundation provided the lead grant for the ongoing work of Fostering Art. Using the camera picture taking techniques they have learned, youth take black and white photographs and write about their subjects. 

In 2006 the Fostering Art program mounted an exhibit at the Route One Gallery in San Francisco and other galleries during National Foster Care Month. Several Fostering Art youth were again chosen to participate as National Geographic Magazine photo interns for the summer of 2006.

More information about A Home Within and the Fostering Art program can be found at www.fosteringart.org.