OCCTAC News - September 2019 Edition
The Justin Salgado Scholarship Fund
OCCTAC created a violin scholarship fund this year to honor the memory of Justin Salgado-Garcia, who was a student at OCCTAC for more than 8 years. Last year, Justin was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he left this world on June 24, 2018. Justin Salgado-Garcia was born on April 5, 2000 in Orange, California. He is the son of Clemente Salgado and Edith Garcia; and has two siblings, Clemente and Kendra Salgado. Clemente described his brother’s passion for music as someone who, “reflects a lifelong commitment to striving for higher standards and achieving one of his goals to be a world-class violinist.” Justin Salgado-Garcia studied violin for eight years at OCCTAC and was a member of our violin quartet. The scholarship recipient, awarded a private violin scholarship, was Breizlander "Chencho" Vidal, who has been awarded private violin lessons at OCCTAC for one entire year!
Pictured below is “Chencho” practicing with violin instructor, Clemente Salgado:
On Saturday, October 12, we presented the following OCCTAC's Justin Salgado Scholarship recipients with their awards: Breizlander “Chencho” Vidal, Valeria Alarcón, Guadalupe Marcial, Jesus Reyes, Roberto Reyes, and Jairo Mendez. Also pictured: Edith Garcia, mother of Justin Salgado, and Clemente Salgado, brother of Justin Salgado and OCCTAC violin instructor. Congratulations, students!
2019 - 2020 Grants Awarded to OCCTAC!
OCCTAC is pleased to announce that we received the following grants for 2019-20, which help us to provide important community services and arts programming in Orange County:
City of Santa Ana, CDBG On June 18, 2019, the City of Santa Ana (https://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/) awarded OCCTAC a $70,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to continue to serve Santa Ana residents in the Willard Neighborhood. These public funds will help us continue to provide a crime prevention and intervention program to Willard Intermediate School students and their families. The students will receive Arts enrichment classes, Therapeutic Arts, Family Counseling, Parenting classes, and Academic Support.
City of Santa Ana, Investing in the Artist grant OCCTAC was awarded a new Investing in the Artist grant by the City of Santa Ana (https://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/) of $7,000 to provide Santa Ana residents a Mental Health Stigma Reduction Arts Program for the senior population of Santa Ana. Local teaching artists will conduct workshops once a week at the Corbin Family Resource Center. The creative process is used as an introspective medium where participants can express and discuss their experiences and collaborate in the production of individual and collaborative art projects to reduce mental health stigma in the community. The works of art will be exhibited during the City’s monthly Art Walk (https://www.dtsaartwalk.org/).
City of Santa Ana, Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA) grant. On July 2, 2019, the City of Santa Ana (https://www.ci.santa-ana.ca.us/) approved a $199,770 grant for OCCTAC to provide transitional age youth (16 – 24 years old) paid work experience, employment preparation, tutoring, mentoring, career counseling in the field of Arts, Education & Technology, leadership opportunities and other support services. In addition, OCCTAC will continue to partner with the Santa Ana College to continue to offer occupational skills training in the areas of office administration, childcare worker certification, and career technical training to Santa Ana transitional age youth and the community at-large.
Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) On September 24, 2019 the SAUSD Board of Supervisors (https://www.sausd.us/) approved a $167,000 contract for OCCTAC to continue to provide SAUSD elementary and middle school students arts enrichment programming in partnership with SAUSD Engage 360 Extended Learning Program. OCCTAC will continue to teach students the basic concepts, techniques and vocabulary of the art-making process as defined in the VAPA standards, and foster our students’ creativity, self-esteem and social-emotional development.
New Program at OCCTAC
Family Mentoring Program
In partnership with MECCA (Multi Ethnic Collaborative of Community Agencies) (http://ocmecca.org/), OCCTAC started a new program in May 2019 with the purpose of mentoring families with special needs students. The Family Mentoring Program aims at increasing access to services and support for families who have a child or a youth with a disability. The program empowers caregivers to become active, knowledgeable advocates for their children by providing health navigation support and increase the families' access to services for their child to reach their fullest potential. Here is just one of the many success stories from the program as told by Corina Ortega-Parra, our Family Mentoring Program Coordinator: “Giovanni is not only one of the happiest art students at OCCTAC, he is also one of the participants who benefits from the new Family Mentoring Program. Giovanni’s mother is a hard-working person who explains she has to pay $700.00 to numb Giovanni, her son, for his teeth cleaning treatment because there is no other way he can receive the treatment. Family Mentoring was able to direct her to the right resource and connect them with special needs dentist John P. Van, D.D.S. The family saved $700.00 as the cleaning treatment was provided free of charge. Both Giovanni and his mother were very thankful for receiving this help!
