Nonprofit focuses on renewing neighborhoods

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

When the idea of creating a local nonprofit foundation focused on the youth violence issue first landed in Fernand Sarrat’s mind, he believed the problem needed a solution local to the Santa Barbara community.
After a while, however, it became clear that he needed a divided focus on specific solutions for the Eastside and the Westside regions. Further thought narrowed that down again to areas such as the lower Eastside and lower Westside.
Now Sarrat is convinced that neighborhoods within each segment of the community should be the center of attention and support, as opposed to what he termed a “shotgun approach with a thousand programs across the community.”
As a result, the focus of the newly formed Collaborative Communities Foundation (CCF) has shifted somewhat in recent months to rebuilding and renewing neighborhoods through grassroots initiatives.

“Addressing youth violence is still a priority,” Sarrat said, “but we’re getting at it through the neighborhoods.”
Key to that effort is bringing kids to the center of adult activities and organizations, thus pulling them from the margins of society and affording them the respect they deserve.
And by linking those youth to associations and groups already in existence in the neighborhoods, such as informal sports leagues or church groups, the bond between neighbors only grows stronger, Sarrat said.
A cleanup effort on Montecito Street last Saturday provides the perfect example, he said. A group of about 15 kids joined together to clean up trash along the street in an Eastside neighborhood.
“At some point, this very old lady, clearly very poor, comes up and gives me $5 and says it’s to buy something for the kids to drink,” Sarrat said.
He refused until she told him the money came from the heart. As the day wore on, others came up and handed him cash to buy refreshments for the cleanup crew.
“I walked out with $100,” he said, which he used to buy drinks for the participants from a neighborhood store.
The larger message he came away with, however, was that those neighbors must receive so little to have the simple act of cleaning up trash elicit such a response. Also, Sarrat said, the reaction could have resulted from neighbors seeing kids they might be scared of at other times doing something positive for them.
“It hits, certainly, the issue of youth violence for sure,” he said.
Kids get respect and the bond to adults they need, he said, through positive action that creates a feeling of togetherness and community.
So far, Sarrat has approximately 60 local teens involved with his foundation and hopes to bring in at least 200 by the end of the year.
While he hesitates to call it a “mentoring” program, the goal of the initiative is creating close, one-on-one relationships with youth before moving them toward socialization and interaction with the mainstream, essential to getting them jobs and apprenticeships.
“If they go to jail, the mentor sticks with them all the way and is ready to catch them when they get out,” he added.
Getting in touch with youth has been a lengthy and ongoing process that is coming to a culmination of sorts later this month with a community forum focused on what local teens need and want. Sarrat said he plans to have more kids at the forum than any other population.
Laura Inks, a community programs coordinator for the foundation, has spent recent weeks talking to local youth and getting feedback on what they are looking for in terms of activities and involvement in the community.
“I don’t think anybody has really done that yet,” she said in a recent interview.
Along with fellow workers, she has surveyed more than 400 kids in local schools. Plans are to compile that feedback to foment conversation at the forum later this month, which will involve kids interacting with those who work with youth on the streets — leaders involved in the nuts and bolts of youth-centered programs.
“These aren’t the decision-makers, but they are the ones the kids will trust,” Inks said.
Information and additional feedback resulting from the community forum will be shared with others working on the youth violence issue, such as a wide-ranging committee of nonprofits, agencies and officials convened by the City of Santa Barbara.
Sarrat said his goal is to create a truly collaborative entity that shares information and resources rather than letting individual personalities or agendas get in the way.
“It’s not about ego, it’s about the kids and the community,” he said.
It hasn’t been an easy transition for the former IBM executive to move from a corporate management position to a collaborative, open effort.
“I’m going through a hell of a learning process myself,” Sarrat admitted.
And rather than building up his foundation with programs and bureaucracy as he might have been tempted, he said the focus will be on finding neighborhood groups, those roots already embedded in the community, and strengthening them with seed money, support and guidance.
“A very large amount of what they need they can do themselves,” he said.
The role of the CCF, Sarrat said, is more to serve as an enabler when needed, and to step back when neighborhood self-reliance and bonds flourish.
And when that happens, his belief is that a dramatic drop in youth violence will be just one of the many benefits.
“You know the saying, it takes a village to raise a child?” he said. “I’m totally convinced of it.”