Rebuilding Together Peninsula

“Sand Hill Foundation recognizes the continued urgency to preserve affordable home ownership for neighbors-in-need across the San Francisco Peninsula.”

— Melissa Lukin, Executive Director

For those with limited income, addressing critical home repairs can be especially challenging while living in one of the most expensive regions in the United States for housing and home security. Doing things like replacing windows, rebuilding steps, or repairing a roof provides peace of mind and ensures critical asset retention to home owners.

Rebuilding Together Peninsula offers a lifeline to those-in-need through home repairs and modifications. Since 1989, the organization and its many volunteers have serviced at no cost more than 3,500 homes across the San Francisco Peninsula whose occupants include some of the community’s most vulnerable – seniors, veterans, individuals with disabilities, multi-generational families, and those traditionally marginalized.

Over many years, Sand Hill Foundation funding has buoyed Rebuilding Together Peninsula’s annual Rebuilding Days which serve as a catalyst for community engagement, as well as the minor repairs conducted year-round. Grants have also been provided for office needs like conference room furniture and the conversion to a Salesforce database, a new forklift for the warehouse, and unrestricted support for organizational stability.

Sand Hill Foundation’s funding continues to help Rebuilding Together Peninsula provide a measure of dignity for its Peninsula neighbors – offering increased opportunity to both preserve the affordability of their homes and age in place more comfortably. Because everyone deserves to live in a safe and healthy home.

Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula

“Sand Hill Foundation’s longstanding belief in the youth in our community has helped shape BGCP into the organization that it is today. From the beginning, this partnership has enabled BGCP to ensure all Peninsula students can thrive.”

— Jenny Obiaya, Chief Executive Officer

A core belief of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula (BGCP) is that all youth have talents and it’s BGCP’s job to identify and nurture those talents so they blossom because all youth deserve to have optimism about their future.

Just like the rest of America, our San Francisco Peninsula community has become more segregated based on income and race over the past decades. We now have many disparate neighborhoods with extreme differences in wealth, education, and opportunity here. Serving over 5,600 TK-college-aged young people annually at 29 sites, BGCP has expanded its presence and program quality year after year – and Sand Hill Foundation has been there almost every step of the way.

Even before the foundation’s inception in 1995, Susan Ford Dorsey partnered with Condoleezza Rice to create the Center for a New Generation – an enterprise that would become BGCP’s robust middle school enrichment program in the mid-90s. Since then, Sand Hill Foundation has provided consistent support for middle school and college-bound high school youth, along with capital support as new sites were developed.

From 2010-2016, BGCP was a key member of the Silicon Valley Out-of-School-Time Collaborative, an initiative for executive directors led by Sand Hill Foundation in partnership with Sobrato Philanthropies, Packard Foundation, and SV2. Through this collaborative, BGCP embedded social-emotional learning curriculum and program quality measures into daily practices alongside eight other local youth-serving organizations.

Most recently, as BGCP undertook another expansion merger in 2023, Sand Hill Foundation provided multi-year support for new programs in South San Francisco and Daly City – helping to enable a 71% increase in students who are accessing academic programs, mental health services, and extracurricular enrichment activities free of cost. BGCP is now the largest expanded-learning provider in San Mateo County.

One Life Counseling Center

“One Life believes that mental health care should not be a luxury item. We are so proud of our counselors in 29 local schools and the amazing connections they continue to make with their youth clients that remove barriers to therapy.”

— Suzie Hughes, Executive Director

Sand Hill Foundation recognizes the importance of providing access to quality mental health care for all community members regardless of their ability to pay. One Life Counseling Center has served San Mateo County since its inception in 2016. One Life provides counseling, education, and outreach programs to uplift the well-being of local communities. The organization’s mission is to connect marginalized young people with mental health care to heal pain and trauma.

Unrestricted support and emergency funding after a flood from Sand Hill Foundation have helped address disparities faced when accessing care by low-income, immigrant, Spanish-speaking, and BIPOC young people in San Mateo County. Over 140,000 San Mateo County residents speak Spanish at home and there is a significant need for Spanish mental health therapy services. Sand Hill Foundation’s most recent grants support increased services at One Life’s Latinx-led, Latinx-serving “Una Vida” office and through their community partnerships.

According to recent studies by the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five children ages 13-18 have or will have a serious mental illness. Additionally, suicide is now the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24. One Life Counseling Center has become a vital resource for young people in San Mateo County. The organization offers a range of services that include individual counseling sessions, group therapy sessions, educational workshops on mental health topics such as anxiety and depression, and outreach programs that provide support to schools, caregivers, and other community organizations.

One Life Counseling Center’s commitment to providing quality, accessible, multi-lingual mental health care to BIPOC youth and families fills an essential gap in services in San Mateo County.

HIP Housing

“We’re thrilled to have such a resonant mission match with Sand Hill Foundation as we build family econo mic stability and promote well-being in our communities.”

— Kate Comfort Harr, Executive Director

San Mateo County is one of the most expensive areas in the United States, and this has created a significant housing affordability crisis for low-income residents. According to Sustainable San Mateo County, nearly 25,000 low-income renters in the county lacked affordable housing in 2021. Additionally, 72% of extremely low-income households spent over 50% of their income on housing. The lack of affordable housing in our community exacerbates economic insecurity and mass displacement of low-income residents who are disproportionately Black, Latino, women and immigrants. Many individuals who seek housing support from organizations like HIP Housing often work multiple jobs for long hours and/or live in overcrowded and unsafe living conditions to be able to afford local rental prices.

Sand Hill Foundation funds HIP Housing’s Self Sufficiency Program. Established in 1991, the Self Sufficiency Program empowers low-income parents or emancipated foster youth who live in San Mateo County to build a stable future. This up-to-five-year-program provides housing scholarships to clients who are pursuing a career goal through continued education – whether college or job training. Program staff also provide intensive case management along with financial literacy and life skills training. The goal of the program is to help families move past barriers to their success and build the foundation of support needed to achieve a self-sustaining financial position and a sense of security.

In 2019, Iris was referred to the Self Sufficiency Program from a partner agency. She wanted to build a stable future for herself, her husband, and her young daughter and sought housing and case management support as she pursued higher education. She came to the program with an extensive history of trauma and very limited financial resources. James Simmons, Iris’s case manager, speaks about her resolve: “Iris is highly motivated to be self-sufficient because she has a great love for her family.”

Along with intensive, trauma-informed case management, life-skills resources, and financial literacy workshops, Iris’s family received a housing scholarship. For low-income individuals, housing costs are typically the greatest source of financial burden. “Housing was a key element,” said Simmons. “That relieved a lot of stress and gave Iris the opportunity to focus on her education, and focus on being a parent, focus on being a spouse.”

Iris will receive her AS degree in Allied Health this spring, an important step in her journey to becoming a Registered Nurse. Iris describes how her daughter motivates her: “I want to be a role model for her and show her that everything is possible and that she can do anything that she wants in this life.”