Third Annual Jonas Family Fund Youth Programs Gathering to Highlight Successes and Future Goals

Oakland, CA – San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits and funders will convene on Oct. 14th for the third annual Jonas Youth Programs Gathering, hosted by the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund, to share best practices, lessons learned and future goals for mentoring and providing internship opportunities for the area’s most at-risk youth.

The event will take place at MetWest High School in Oakland from 1:00-3:30 and will be led by Jonas Family Fund founders Barbara and Donald Jonas, and Program Officer Lendri Purcell. Remarks from several area nonprofits, including Berkeley Youth Alternatives, Brothers on the Rise, Safe Passages and Youth Alive, will kick off a discussion on youth internships led by Greg Cluster, Internship Coordinator and Fundraiser at MetWest High School.

Several key philanthropic organizations will participate, including the East Bay Community Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Philanthropic Ventures Fund.

“We are excited to bring together dozens of community leaders making a profound difference in young peoples’ lives,” says Purcell. “The Jonas Family Fund is proud to support organizations that help struggling youth to envision and prepare for a better future, and we look forward to learning from their successes and finding ways that more funders and nonprofits can adopt these models.”

As part of its Strengthening At-risk Youth and Families Initiative, the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund has, since 2005, provided roughly $1.2 million to Bay Area nonprofits serving at-risk, low-income youth with an emphasis on special-needs and foster children and teens. Grants from the Jonas Family Fund support programs that provide mentoring, school-to-career transition and/or vocational education, internships and mental health care.

Media are invited to attend the Jonas Youth Programs Gathering. Please contact Lendri Purcell at lendrip@gmail.com or (510) 798-4962 or Greg Cluster at (510) 435-6115.

About the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund
The Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund was established in 2005 with monies raised through an innovative auction at Christie’s of a portion of the family’s noted contemporary art collection. The Fund’s lead initiative is the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, a first-of-its-kind philanthropic program dedicated to advancing the nursing profession in New York City and beyond. Other areas of focus include mental health and strengthening at-risk youth and families. To date, the Jonas Family Fund has provided $10 million in grants.