Quarterly Letter from OCF Board Chair Beverly Holtz

Greetings everyone,

We had a wonderful time on August 30, 2022, at the El Corazon for our annual Grant Celebration. We granted $92,000 to nonprofits serving Oceanside, including:

• Boys & Girls Clubs of Oceanside: $25,000
• North County Lifeline: $15,000
• Interfaith Community Services: $15,000
• Autism Tree Project Foundation: $10,000
• Girls on the Run San Diego: $10,000
• Oceanside Museum of Art: $12,000
• Oceanside Theatre Company: $5,000

Congratulations to our amazing grant chair, Marva Bledsoe!

Marva is our 2022 volunteer of the year. Marva was honored in Escondido at the California Center for the Arts on Oct. 28.

We are grateful for her commitment to OCF, her leadership and the expertise that she brings to our organization. Thank you, Marva!

Members, watch for your invitation to our annual holiday party on Dec. 6. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lesley Hughes at lhughes@sdfoundation.org.

The work that we together do is dependent on your generosity to our community.

Thank you for your continued support of Oceanside!

Beverly Holtz
Chair, 2022-2023

Oceanside Community Foundation Grantee Spotlight: Words Alive

In 2021, Oceanside Community Foundation (OCF) awarded Words Alive program, “Words Alive Adolescent Book Group – Connecting Students and their Stories to the World.” Thanks to the investment from OCF, Words Alive was able to deepen their impact for Oceanside’s youth with impactful programming to inspire teens to become lifelong learners. This grant enabled them to address, head-on, the data that show 45% of Oceanside high schoolers reading below grade level, even before the pandemic exacerbated existing inequities.

Words Alive’s goal was to bring their research-backed Adolescent Book Group to teenagers from historically under-resourced schools in Oceanside; bringing teenagers together to explore diverse, socially relevant texts; and encouraging youth to develop and express their own voices. By utilizing a train-the-trainer model with new and long-standing community partners serving Oceanside’s youth, they empowered these organizations to develop the skills and confidence to build a community of young readers that will support learning well beyond this grant. This program was able to serve 279 youth.

“The Oceanside Community Foundation’s investment allowed Words Alive to bring back our impactful Adolescent Book Group to Oceanside, prioritizing youth most at risk for learning loss compounded by the ongoing pandemic.” – Rachael Orose, Executive Director Words Alive.

You can read the Adolescent Book Group Impact Report for more information detailing the overall success of the Adolescent Book Group, of which 70% of participants in the 2021-2022 school year were in Oceanside.

Member Spotlight: Janet Bledsoe Lacy

Janet Bledsoe Lacy is a long-term Oceansider, with her parents purchasing 4.5 acres of property in the Fire Mountain area of Oceanside in 1963. Janet attended San Diego State University, followed by California Western School of Law. Janet became the second female attorney in the North County, and a partner in one of the largest and oldest law firms in Oceanside. Janet and her husband Steve bought 3.33 acres “full of weeds” next to her parent’s property in 1975, which was then on the outskirts of Oceanside. Janet and Steve have two children, who are both attorneys. Her daughter, Jennifer, now owns and is living on her grandparent’s property, with son, Jeff, living in the home on the corner. Janet’s sister, Marva, lives next door to Jeff, completing the family compound.

Janet and Steve have been active in many charitable and good causes, having hosted the City of Oceanside’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Garden Reception at their home for 31 years, raising well over $3 million for deserving students. Janet served on the Oceanside School Board for over 22 years. Janet and Steve joined the Oceanside Branch of the San Diego Foundation immediately after it was created “because of all of the potential incredible support” that they knew the OCF would offer “to so many different wonderful programs and people in our community.”