In the heartland of the Pico-Union Neighborhood, the very first joint event for the non-profits in the neighborhood, “Cultura, Arte, y Educacion Extravagenza”, was launched.
Cruz brought his students and their art works over to be part of the exhibition. The event would also be their first public selling. All the finished canvas and painted boards were tagged with prices. The graffiti portrait of Marilyn Monroe stood in the middle, with a price tag for $150 dollars.
The booth for the graffiti art show was ready. A girl in a white floral lace shirt walked toward the booth, and gave Cruz a warm hug.
The girl was the 23-year-old Estephania Vazquez. Similar to Cruz, Vazquez went out of Pico-Union to attend University of California at Riverside for five years. After graduate, she decided to bring her knowledge back to the neighborhood.
“The common thing happens today is (that) people who graduate from college, most of them don’t come back to their communities,” said Vazquez. “I knew part of me wanted to stay in Riverside; but I also knew I have the responsibility to come back.”
Vazquez now worked as the Pico-Union community liaison for the Youth Policy Institute (YPI), a nonprofit organization missions to give education, training, and technology services for low-income families. YPI established its Pico-Union center several years ago. The center partnered a public charter high school, providing academic and funded career training for the high school dropouts in the neighborhood.
As a nonprofit funded by other federal programs previously, YPI was granted the priority to seek the new Promise Zone aid. As one of the first effort, YPI was going to expand their summer jobs program. Vazquez was spreading the word to the community that 2,000 young people would gain work experience in fields from healthcare, computer software to banking.
Joyce Marzan graduated from YPI’s Pico-Union center this year. Feeling lack of focus paid by her teachers, she dropped out of different regular schools for several times.
"I was sad that I missed my first graduation and my first option was to drop out of school, but my family would be disappointed and I didn't want to disappoint them,” Marzan recalled. “I came to the center to give it another shot.”
Marzan enjoyed the relationships she had with the teachers working at center: they were more responsible for her work, and they paid more attention to her. With the help from the center, Marzan regained her high school diploma. In the future, she looked forward to continuing her education.
"As far as goals when I graduate from high school I would like to enter film school and focus on that or graphic design," said Marzan.
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