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SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Assistant County Fire Chief Dan Munsey will serve as the new Fire Chief for the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District effective immediately following his appointment by County Chief Executive Officer Gary McBride, with concurrence from the Board of Supervisors.

Munsey, who has served with County Fire since 1995, succeeds Mark Hartwig, who left the department in February to accept a job as fire chief for Santa Barbara County. Deputy Fire Chief Don Trapp has served as interim chief since Hartwig’s departure.

Munsey’s appointment concluded a nationwide recruiting effort that began shortly after Hartwig’s departure and yielded a broad field of applicants.

“There were several outstanding candidates,” McBride said. “But the Board and I concluded that Assistant Chief Munsey offered the best combination of the traits we were seeking: the leadership skills and commitment to operate County Fire effectively and professionally, and the ability and desire to work productively with public safety agencies throughout the county.”

“Being chosen to serve as fire chief for this organization is a tremendous honor,” Munsey said. “This is a team of highly skilled, dedicated professionals who serve a great community. I am excited about this opportunity to lead them and provide them with the tools and the environment they need to help County Fire fully achieve its great potential.”

In his most recent assignment as Assistant Chief, Division 11, Munsey was responsible for rescue operations, fire, and emergency medical response in the High Desert region, which is the largest of the five regions served by San Bernardino County Fire.

Munsey began his career in the fire service in 1995 as a paid-call firefighter. He became a full-time firefighter in 1998, where he was assigned to Lake Arrowhead. He has worked in every division of County Fire, promoting to captain in 2004, battalion chief in 2008, and assistant chief in March 2014.

Munsey holds a master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis on business and government and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Grand Canyon University. Munsey is the current president of the Operations Section of the California Fire Chiefs Association and president of the Hi-Desert Water District Board of Directors. He has been active for a decade in the Rotary Club of San Bernardino, Victorville, and Yucca Valley.

In 2013, Munsey graduated from the San Bernardino County Management & Leadership Academy, a program that provides comprehensive management and leadership training to county employees. Participants gain theoretical and practical knowledge of public service management and leadership practices, with specific emphasis on understanding their application within San Bernardino County government.

The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District has about 1,000 employees, covers approximately 19,000 of the county’s 20,105 square miles, and serves more than 60 incorporated municipalities and unincorporated communities within four Regional Service Zones – Mountain, North Desert, South Desert and Valley – including the City of Grand Terrace, City of Hesperia, City of Needles, City of San Bernardino, City of Twentynine Palms, City of Upland, Town of Yucca Valley, and unincorporated areas. Additionally, County Fire provides contractual fire protection services to two cities: Adelanto and Fontana, via its independent fire protection district.

County Fire is a community-based, all-hazard emergency services organization providing emergency mitigation and management for fire suppression, emergency medical services, ambulance services, hazardous materials response, arson investigation, hazard and terrorism/weapons of mass destruction abatement, and technical rescue, including water-borne, flooding and mudslide, and winter rescue operations.

FONTANA, CA—EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—- Fontana Unified School District was named Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) district of the year for the West End and East Valley regions of San Bernardino County during an awards ceremony on November 14.

The district also had two platinum award-winning schools – the highest honor bestowed by the California PBIS Coalition – and 14 other silver and gold medal schools at the event.Harry S. Truman Middle School and Citrus Elementary School were Fontana’s platinum-winning schools.

The districts’ other gold and silver schools honored during the ceremony were: Alder (silver);Cypress (gold); Date (silver); Fontana High (gold); Dolores Huerta International Academy (gold); Juniper (silver); Jurupa Hills High (gold); Live Oak (silver); Mango (silver); Randall Pepper (silver); Sequoia (gold); Sierra Lakes (silver); Southridge Tech (silver); and West Randall (silver).

They were among a record 186 schools and programs from the West End and East Valley regions of San Bernardino County that received recognition for their platinum, gold and silver awards at the ceremony, which was held at the Way World Outreach Church in San Bernardino.

The event was hosted by San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ PBIS program.

For a list of all the schools and district recognized at the awards ceremony, visit County Schools’ website.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA— — Southern California Edison (SCE) donated to Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy (YVYLA), to help give support to their S.A.M. Program, which stands for Student Achievement Mentor Program. Most of SCE grant funding is targeted to help meet the needs of diverse ethnic groups, seniors, people with special needs, women, low-income, and gay and lesbian populations groups that are often under-served.

A donation of $5,000.00 was donated to the Young Visionaries SAM Program. Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy’s Student Achievement Mentoring (SAM) is a program designed to address and reduce suspensions through effective implementation of positive behavior support systems. SAM is a goal-oriented program designed to support the educational and professional aspirations of all students. The Program increases the completion of developmental courses, retention and graduation rates. To accomplish this, the program increases exposure to educational, professional, and civic opportunities.

The Student Achievement Mentoring Program through mentoring works to:

• Improved Self Confidence and Self Esteem

• Increase Motivation

• Broaden horizons and experience of students

• Raise Achievements and Aspirations

• Build Relationships

• Establish Employment Development Skills

• Support to Graduation

The City of San Bernardino is home to a diverse and prominently minority population: 66% Hispanic, 14% African American, 13% White, 4% Asian, and 3% other. 23% percent of the population is foreign-born. In San Bernardino, the 2016 median household income was $39,472, compared to $63,783 for the State. Unemployment has remained above both state and national levels since the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2018 unemployment rate for the City was 5%, compared to 3.9% for the county, 4.6% for the state, and 4.1% for the United States.

Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy has large annual outreach events for the San Bernardino community. For example, February, “Hearts for Hygiene” at this event YVYLA collects 200 bags of hygiene and distribute them to the youth in our programs that need hygiene. June is Young Visionaries Annual Youth Conference, this conference average up to 300 youth in attendance. The month of August the youth group has an annual “2000 Backpack and School Supplies” giveaway, the month of November is a Thanksgiving event giving out 1000 Thanksgiving Turkeys and boxes of food to 1000 families in need. During the month of December for Christmas YVYLA has their annual 1000 Toy giveaway to 1000 community youth.

“We would like to thank, Southern California Edison for their generous donation and recognizing the need in our community” says Terrance Stone, CEO and Founder of Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Over one thousand teachers got extra help for their classrooms at the first I.E.’s Largest Teachers Appreciation Day event held at Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County (CAPSBC) on Saturday, October 26. Teachers from all over San Bernardino County chose from over $1 million in new school supplies donated by the Family and Kids Foundation.

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The event was open to elementary school teachers from all school districts. CAPSCB and Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy provided warehousing, sorting, and distributing the items, as well as publicizing the event to teachers and lending a hand as attendees browsed through the materials and chose items for their classrooms.

Assemblymember Eloise Gomez-Reyes stopped by to support the event and presented certificates of appreciation, saying, “This event celebrates the joy of teachers who work tremendously hard to provide the best learning experience that will prepare all students to have successful futures.”

CAPSBC board member Dr. Margaret Hill said, “These items go a long way in helping teachers who reach into their own pockets to purchase materials so they can offer their students the finest classroom experiences. With this wonderful donation from the Family and Kids Foundation, we were able to provide an unlimited amount of school supplies to all teachers that participated.”

Established in 1965, CAPSBC works with our low-income communities to address barriers to economic stability. This is accomplished under an array of services and assistance programs including food/nutrition, home energy, and family development. For more information on CAPSBC and its programs, visit their website at www.capsbc.org.

By John Coleman, Community Photographer

For many years the Riverside NAACP Chapter, Anderson Copeland Memorial,  the Kansas Avenue Seventh Day Adventist Church, Armed Forces Commitee  and the Rubiboux SDA Church have cooperated, annually, in presenting a special Memorial Day, Veterans Recognition Luncheon. 

The public was invited.  Those who serve or served in the military were invited to wear their uniform or symbols.

The 2019 observance was held on Monday, November 11, 2019, at the Cross Word Christian Church, Education Building in Moreno  Valley.

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SAN BERNARDINO, CA— Options For Youth (OFY) hosted a Grand Opening for its third campus in San Bernardino on November 5, 2019. The event brought together community partners and the local residents to celebrate with a ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by the San Bernardino Chamber of Commerce, tour the new facility, and learn more about the non-profit OFY-SB public charter school program.

For its contribution to the San Bernardino community, State Senator Mike Morrell’s office presented Options For Youth – San Bernardino (OFY-SB) a Certificate of Recognition at the event. OFY-SB’s Principal Ileana Arroyo said the school’s goal was to “provide alternative paths of academic excellence and overall success for those students whose unique needs have not met solutions in a traditional high school environment.”

OFY-SB has been working with the San Bernardino City Unified School District for the past ten years, educating students in grades 7-12 who are facing social, emotional, and academic challenges in traditional public schools. OFY-SB has helped underserved students by providing a flexible and customizable lesson plan, tutoring and sports, and by encouraging students to re-engage with their community through volunteer work with Ronald McDonald House, Walk for Kids, Helping Hands Pantry, Community Gardening, Angels Closets in Redlands, and Red Cross Blood Drives.

The OFY-SB campus is located in the El Dorado Plaza by the Walgreens Pharmacy. The campus space features a large open communal room with several SGI (small group instruction) classrooms on the outer perimeter.

For more information, visit https://ofy.org/

SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Ms. Madeline Farlow, one of the community leaders and employee of the Employment Development Department spent time with Social Lites, Inc. of San Bernardino Beautillion Knights on a beautiful fall afternoon on Saturday, November 2, 2019 at the Center for Youth and Community Development.  Ms. Farlow addressed goal setting, importance of professional appearance and role-playing with the participants in soliciting for ads for scholarships. 

The 53rd Beautillion Scholarship 2019-2020 program under the leadership of Mrs. Tina Darling, Beautillion Chairperson is now in progress.   Its’ not too late for young men seeking scholarship opportunities to participate in this scholarship and personal development program. 

Community leaders who have spent time with participants include Dr. Samuel Gibbs, Mr. Richard Blacksher, Dr. Rose Culpepper and Bessine Little, City Council Woman, 6^th Ward. 

Weekly meetings are on Saturdays from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Center for Youth & Community Development (formerly Boys and Girls Club of San Bernardino) located at 1180 W. 9^th Street, San Bernardino, CA  92411.  The program will commence on March 28, 2020 at the National Orange Show of San Bernardino.

For more information, please telephone chairperson, Mrs. Tina Darling at tribicu2@msn.com or Ms. Lisa Blacksher, President at lisasocialities@gmail.com or Mrs. Bettye Brewster, Business Manager, bettyebrewster@yahoo.com

By Tess Eyrich

In 2010, during the last decennial population count, nearly one in four Inland Empire households didn’t mail back their census questionnaire. What’s more, another 40,000 people throughout the region didn’t receive a questionnaire by mail at all.

Why does this matter? Because undercounted regions miss out on vital federal and state funding, hindering potential growth in those regions for years to come. In a place like the Inland Empire, which has seen significant growth over the past decade, missing out on funding could be especially damaging. 

This fall, staffers and students at the University of California, Riverside, are mobilizing in a variety of ways to ensure a more accurate regional population count in 2020. 

Leading the charge is the Center for Social Innovation, which two weeks ago spearheaded the formation of UCR Counts, the university’s official Complete Count Committee. An initiative of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Complete Count Committees program is key to creating census awareness in communities nationwide through targeted outreach efforts.

UCR Counts brings together representatives from the center, which is housed within the School of Public Policy; Student Life; Governmental & Community Relations; the Associated Students of UC Riverside, or ASUCR; and Undocumented Student Programs.

Complementing the committee’s efforts, on Oct. 16, ASUCR passed its first Senate Resolution of the fall 2019 quarter, encouraging  student leaders, student organizations, and administrators to participate in census efforts.

The resolution was co-authored by Eric Calderon and Luis Huerta, two members of ASUCR’s Executive Cabinet who also serve as student representatives on UCR Counts. It emphasizes UCR’s responsibility to host informational sessions about the census and promote census education and resources on campus. 

Perhaps more importantly, however, it underscores the university’s role in driving outreach to so-called “hard-to-count” communities, including undocumented immigrants, non-English speakers and/or households, and racial and ethnic minorities, among other groups. 

“One key statement in the resolution that will drive our work is, ‘Students are often important advocates, translators, guides, and trusted messengers for their family, friends, and community,’” said Marlenee Blas, associate director of the Center for Social Innovation, who is leading the on-campus census efforts. “We’re really relying on our students as trusted messengers for their communities.” 

During a visit with members of UCR Counts on Oct. 24, Ditas Katague, director of California Complete Count, the office coordinating census efforts statewide, discussed the importance of UCR’s work and shared outreach strategies. 

“Our hard-to-count populations in California are full of fear,” she said. The current political climate, Katague noted, has increased wariness among many people in hard-to-count communities, which also include low-income groups, people experiencing homelessness, and those living in rural or geographically isolated areas.  

“People keep asking, ‘What’s different this year?’” she added. “But what they should be asking is, ‘How can we make the difference?’ Because everyone knows the political environment this year is different. But for me, what’s going to make the difference is the youth — period.”

Katague said the Census Bureau’s pivot to a digital format in lieu of traditional paper questionnaires puts young people on the forefront of outreach and education efforts. 

For the first time, the bureau is asking most people to answer the census online. Katague believes this opens up a realm of opportunities to promote the census through social media, for example, as well as for young people to help their older relatives and friends with completing it.

Katague was joined in the visit to UCR by Mignonne Pollard, education outreach manager for California Complete Count, and Quintilia Ávila, regional program manager for California Complete Count’s efforts throughout Southern California. 

Pollard said California Complete Count will work over the next year to partner with the University of California, individual UC campuses, and UC’s various Basic Needs programs to ensure harder-to-count populations are reached in 2020. 

The statewide team will also use the recently passed ASUCR resolution as an example when visiting other universities to promote census efforts, they said.

On campus, UCR Counts has plans to collaborate with several departments and groups, such as Residential Life, the ethnic and gender programs based in Costo Hall, and the Academic Senate.

A major aspect of the Oct. 24 meeting involved figuring out how UCR Counts might better connect with undocumented students, in particular, and those with ties to other hard-to-count populations both in the region and statewide.

The campus committee builds on the Center for Social Innovation’s ongoing work in coordinating census outreach efforts across Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science who serves as director of both the center and the Inland Empire Complete Count Committee.

“Efforts like UCR Counts will give students a once-in-a-decade opportunity to deepen their applied research skills and serve their communities, either through paid census job opportunities or through service-learning opportunities that draw on their talents and passions,” Ramakrishnan said.

Likewise, Blas emphasized that UCR students — many of whom are Pell Grant recipients and first-generation college students — have the potential to make big impacts in their communities.

Students can assist with the committee’s efforts by talking to their families and friends about why it’s important to participate in the census. The census will take place on April 1, in the middle of the first week of the spring 2020 quarter, making spring break a prime time for initiating conversations with loved ones about how to participate.

“Concentrate your efforts on the hardest of the hard to count,” Katague said. “And please document everything you’re doing,” she added, so that in another 10 years, the campus might be able to follow the blueprint established by UCR Counts. 

FONTANA, CA—- The Fontana Pastors United is having their first community block party on Saturday, November 16, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Fontana.  Father Stephen Casmus has agreed to co-host the event and he is excited to bring the community into his church and being to help those in need. The Loveland Church, under the direction of Dr. Chuck Singleton, will host the event.

They are expecting hundreds to be in attendance, so come early. At the event, there will be free food, free groceries,  free gifts and prizes for the kids, free clothes and free health checks, job resources. The host church will be Loveland Church located at 17977 W Merrill Avenue, Fontana, CA 92335. Pastor Kevin Moore is an associate minister of Loveland and CEO for Fontana Pastors United organized the event.

You are invited to come and have a great time, churches from around Fontana will be in unity and one accord. We are the body of Christ and members of one another. For more information call Pastor Kevin Moore at 909-829-0171 or Loveland Church at 909-356-LOVE or contact Father Stephen Casmus at 909-822-9917. You can preregister at sbpastorsunited.org. Thank you. “Providing hope to a Generation”.  The Fontana Pastors United is praying for You.

LOS ANGELES, CA—-  2,390 participants came together at the LA Zoo November 2 to walk for friends, family and loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Amongst the crowd were caregivers, those living with Alzheimer’s, civic leaders, celebrities and members of the community who want to play a part in fighting a disease that affects 5.8 million Americans.  Friday the Association announced the event has surpassed its fundraising goal of $750,000.

Funds raised at the event provide free, local care, support and advocacy, as well as research initiatives. Monies raised also fund the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline (800.272.3900), which offers services in 200 languages.

During the walk’s opening ceremony FOXLA Good Day LA Host Rita Garcia and FOXLA Anchor Bob DeCastro brought the crowd to tears as they shared their personal journeys with Alzheimer’s disease.

“My grandma passed away after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2012. I can’t tell you how difficult of a journey it was to watch the disease  progress so fast and so deliberate in such a strong and independent woman,” Garcia said. “It was heartbreaking to constantly remind her of who she was, who we were, how much she had taught all her granddaughters and how we would continue with her legacy of traditions, customs and, my favorite, her special dishes.  I walk in honor of by dear grandma.”

Nikki DeLoach, actress and Alzheimer’s Association Celebrity Champion, shared her personal commitment to the cause in honor of her dad, who is living with Pick’s disease, a rare form of dementia.

“The road with dementia is a long, winding, emotional battle,” said DeLoach. “But today, we were reminded that by coming together at Walk to End Alzheimer’s we are paving the way to finding a cure for this devastating disease, and supporting one another on this journey.”

This year’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s Los Angeles welcomed a new partnership with Tandem Careplanning, a public benefit corporation that helps clients and caregivers obtain and manage in-home care relationships.

“As a company that strives to be a partner throughout the caregiving journey, Tandem Careplanning is proud to support the Alzheimer’s Association and work together to ensure continued improvement in care and research for a disease that affects many of our clients,” said Joshua Greer, CEO and co-founder of Tandem Careplanning.

DeCastro summarized the energy that brought everyone together to raise awareness and funds for those fighting this disease now and in the future.

“From the people living with Alzheimer’s to their caregivers, it takes an incredible amount of compassion and courage to cope with this devastating disease.  With the same love, strength and faith we will someday find a cure,” he said.

Of the Americans living with Alzheimer’s in the United States,  more than  670,000 in California. Additionally, more than 16 million family members and friends provide care and support to people living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Every 65 seconds someone in the U.S. develops the disease.

The final walk of the 2019 Walk to End Alzheimer’s California Southland 14-city series will take place November 9 in Palm Desert. For more information, visit alz.org/walk.