City of Gonzales
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & STRATEGIC
PARTNERSHIPS
STAFF REPORT
TO: Honorable Mayor Rios and City Council
DATE: May 15, 2023
FROM: Carmen Gil, Community Engagement & Strat. Partnerships Dir.
THROUGH: Trevin W. Barber, City Manager
SUBJECT: Community Engagement and Strategic Partnerships Report Gonzales Youth Council
1. The month of April was a busy one for the GYC. Not only has the GYC continued to meet with the GHS superintendent and school staff to collaborate on problem solving issues around the schools including upgrading the Gonzales High bathrooms and deploying beautification projects on campus.
2. They have also been meeting with the Design/Build teams that are working to design the community center and provided them with insights as to how the spaces specifically the Teen Innovation Center will be used and how they see the overall community center being a hub for the community.
3. On April 21st GYC members Aliyah Carrillo and Sherlyn Flores-Magadan attended CSUMB’s Spring Showcase where they got to show their work on mental health alongside CSUMB research students and Dr. Lovell. They got to talk to patrons about the research process and their data collection methods and findings. It was a great opportunity for them and exposed them to professional research settings. They were both very happy to be there and after a few interactions with attendees they felt comfortable and had no problem sharing their research experience. It was especially neat for Sherlyn who is a graduating senior and will be attending CSUMB in the fall.
AGENDA
ITEM
9 Community Engagement
1. Although the Community Health Workers continue to provide COVID-19 support services, especially as we have recently seen a small uptick of positive cases, their work now focuses more on resiliency efforts. Those efforts include supporting some of the local food distributions around town as well as sharing resources with the community at varying opportunities. For example, they are now supporting the work on the Housing Element given that it requires community input. The community health workers have been out encouraging people to fill out the survey and helped people complete the survey at the Día Del Nino celebration at Central Park. Support to complete the survey is important given that quite a few people do not know what a Housing Element entails or why it is important. Having someone that can help answer those questions for them makes it easier and more desirable for them to complete the survey.
2. The CHWs have also started implementing Healthy Family Food Demonstrations as part of the City’s Childhood Obesity Prevention grant. In April they held 2 separate cooking demonstrations.
At the first one they had 9 families participate with a total of 18 kids and at the second one they had a total of 10 families with 25 kids. The families (and especially the children) had a great time learning how to make healthy snacks and had an even better time eating them! The team has another 2 demonstrations scheduled for the month of May. One will be held on May 12th and the other will be on May 26th.
Gonzales in the News
Staff is busy planning for the All-American City Award competition in June. The presentation has to be delivered in a unique and creative way but still encompass the main points of the application so staff and the team are working to put something together that will knock the judges socks off.
Grants
1. Community engagement staff is busy closing out multiple grants including the rental and utility assistance grants. These include grants from United Way and multiple grants from the State (EFSP 37, EFSP38 and CARES).
2. Staff is working to calculate expenditures, producing reports, and developing invoices for cost recovery for the Community Health Worker grant that is scheduled to sunset June 30th.
The Community Engagement and Strategic Partnerships Director is also supporting the cost recovery efforts, including invoicing for the Department of Housing and Community Development Planning grant for the amount of $160,000.