{"id":889,"date":"2019-12-19T19:50:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/?p=889"},"modified":"2019-12-20T07:51:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T14:51:50","slug":"variety-boys-girls-club-of-boyle-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2019\/variety-boys-girls-club-of-boyle-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Variety Boys & Girls Club of Boyle Heights’ New Family Resource Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On\nDecember 18, 2019, the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Boyle Heights dedicated\ntheir new Gonzalez Family Resource Center to Patricia (Pat) Gonzalez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat\nhas long been a supporter of the community. Her achievements include raising\nover $2 million from silent auctions for Variety, the Children\u2019s Charity of\nSouthern California, where she is co-chairperson. She is also on the board of\ndirectors for the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Boyle Heights. Her work led\nher to receive Studio Movie Grill\u2019s Opening Hearts and Minds Award earlier this\nyear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nneighborhood, Boyle Heights, nestled east of Downtown Los Angeles, has long\nstruggled with providing resources for families, with only 5% of residents in\nthe neighborhood having earned four-year degrees. To improve conditions for\nfamilies, many film executives support the club including Pat Gonzalez, Senior\nVice President of In-Theater Marketing at Paramount Pictures; Scott Forman,\nExecutive Vice President and General Sales Manager of Warner Brothers; and Studio\nMovie Grill, known for their in-dining movie theaters across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Brian\nSchultz, founder and CEO of Studio Movie Grill once said, \u201cI don\u2019t like calling\nit charity, we like to actually support sustainable causes.\u201d This philosophy can\nbe seen in action at the Variety Boys and Girls Club, where children receive\nassistance with education, college preparation and much more. Outside, the club\nhas gardening sites where children not only learn to grow fruits and vegetables\nbut also receive training in the culinary arts, just two examples of the many\nactivities that children may participate in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beautiful\nmurals created by the children themselves fill the walls around the gardening\nsite. Elsewhere, the club\u2019s encouragement of creativity can also be seen. In\nthe art space, children learn art styles ranging from the Renaissance to\nPostmodern art. The kids\u2019 accomplishments can be seen in sports as well; the\nentrance to the club is lined with dozens of trophies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nFamily Resource Center will go beyond helping the children and help entire\nfamilies with career and college assistance. By doing so, \u201cwe break the cycle\nof poverty by ensuring that our parents and our members’ parents have access to\nresources so that they are able to secure higher-paying jobs and be able to\nprovide for their family,\u201d explained Patricia Siqueiros, Executive Director of\nthe Variety Boys and Girls Club. The center also contains the club’s brand-new\nlibrary where children can read books ranging from Dr. Seuss to literary\nclassics such as the works of Jules Verne. Plans in the future include\npotentially forming a partnership with the University of Southern California to\nprovide dental care for residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfilm industry has begun giving back in many ways to ensure the health of their\nlocal communities. Outside the glamour and shine of Hollywood, many residents\nof Los Angeles still lack access to base necessities. The work done by Pat\nGonzalez, Studio Movie Grill and others can only build a better future if every\nindividual helps improve their communities whether it is in the form of monetary\ndonations, donations of goods or volunteering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can support the Variety Boys and Girls Club at\u00a0http:\/\/vbgc.org\/<\/a>\u00a0and you can support the Variety Children\u2019s Charity at\u00a0https:\/\/varietysocal.org\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gerry O., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic, Age 17 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 18, 2019, the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Boyle Heights dedicated their new Gonzalez Family Resource Center to Patricia (Pat) Gonzalez. Pat has long been a supporter of the community. Her achievements include raising over $2 million from silent auctions for Variety, the Children\u2019s Charity of Southern California, where she is co-chairperson. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jury-updates"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}