Hands Together A Center For Children

The mission of Hands Together is to provide the highest quality early childhood education and care to families of the working poor who are striving to gain stability, improve their lives and emerge from poverty. The goal is to prepare children to enter school with a quality early childhood education.

Hands Together was founded in 1999 through the collaborative efforts of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange, Episcopal Church of the Messiah, the City of Santa Ana, Santa Ana College, Taller San Jose, and St. Joseph Health System. The founding leaders identified early childhood education as a way to mitigate chronic poverty. Hands Together is a stand-alone non-profit organization that offers services in preschool/child care, reading readiness curriculum, English learning, health screenings, developmental screenings, financial literacy and parental skills training.

Hands Together has provided educational services to over 3,000 children and their families since its inception in 1999.  Hands Together is supported by a variety of community partners not only in Orange County, but nationally. A partial support list includes Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, American Woodmark Foundation, St. Joseph's Heathcare, Ingram Micro, Pacific Premier Bank, Dedicated to Learning, Inc., Whole Foods Market's Community Giving, and the Orange County Community Foundation.  In 2013, Hands Together was awarded a $250,000 capacity building grant from the Children and Families Commission of Orange County for renovation and expansion of the Hands Together Preschool to increase our service capacity to the community by 20%.
 
 

One of Hands Together organizational challenges is the minimal number of staff, specifically Executive Staff. With the Executive Director running the day-to-day operations it is difficult to focus as much attention on financial development, donor cultivation and program expansion. The Hands Together Board of Directors is currently exploring the possibility of creating a new Operations Manager Position in order to allow the Executive Director greater opportunity to explore new funding streams, strengthen organizational structure and focus on strategic planning.  The other organizational challenge is, as it is in many places, the desire to help those in need but having a limited number of resources to pay for those services. Hands Together programs continuously run at capacity with many more children and families waiting and needing assistance. It is our desire to provide the highest quality early education and care to families of the working poor who are striving to gain stability, improve their lives, and emerge from poverty. We are committed to creating a diverse set of funding streams that will enable us to expand our services and help even more children and families.

The target population is located in the 92701 zip code, a 'priority 1' special need zone rated by the State of California.  Most families enrolled in our program are first generation Hispanic immigrants with little or no education.  While the parents attend our English Learning and Vocational Skill and Parenting classes, their preschool aged children attend an advanced early education preschool program.  73 children and 20 parents are currently enrolled.  Education begins at home, and if the parents cannot speak English, they cannot help their children with their reading and kindergarten preparation.

Hands Together's commitment to literacy training gives preschool children the skills they need to enter the public school system and succeed.  We know early childhood education is crucial to the children's long-term education and development.