Heritage High School Teens Do Their Part to Support At-risk Immigrant Families in Santa Ana

Heritage High School (Menifee) students Alina Ibarra and Ana Ponce are striving to make a difference in the lives of at-risk immigrant families this summer through their community service project called Healing Our Backbone.

The teens are members of the 10th Fellowship cohort of the Dragon Kim Foundation, an Orange County, California-based nonprofit - http://dragonkimfoundation.org - whose mission is to inspire our youth to impact their communities while discovering and pursuing their passions.

The two did not need to look far for inspiration for their heartfelt project. Both are from families who came to America to give them opportunities their ancestors never had.

Their Healing Our Backbone project delivers basic essentials like groceries, hygiene products, and clothing item to immigrants who fear being deported and separated from their. families. Apart from delivering essentials to the front doors of immigrants, they also plan to host drive -through events at local venues where necessities can be safely picked up..

Using a grant of up to $5,000 from the Foundation, they have been shopping and then having deliveries made to immigrant families in Santa Ana.

“Our project is centered around providing for hardworking immigrant families, whose hard work contributed to the structure of America,” said Ponce. “Our project is significant to the community because it will provide not only for adult immigrants, but for their children, as well.”

“Our project will give them a sense of security as our volunteer drivers deliver basic essentials right to their doors,” said Ibarra. “It's more than a political stance. It’s about whether or not these families get to eat and stay here at the same time. This project is important to us because we want to ease their fears about a frightful situation in a country where once they were more comfortable.”

The teams receive three weekends of leadership training and hands-on guidance from invested professionals who are their mentors.As always, the leadership training, which elsewhere can cost several thousand dollars, is provided for free to each Dragon Fellow. The projects have the potential of benefiting thousands of people, including many living in challenged neighborhoods.

Since 2016, the Foundationhas supported more than 500 high schoolers in channeling their passions into tangible impact by helping their communities via summer service projects. The Foundation helps them break barriers to be changemakers in challenged neighborhoods, where many also live.

"We are proud of these motivated high school students and look forward to them bringing attention to important issues they have identified in their communities,” said Dragon Kim Foundation CEO and Co-founder Daniel Kim.

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About the Dragon Kim Foundation

The Dragon Kim Foundation was established in 2015 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by Grace Tsai and Daniel Kim to honor the memory of their late son Dragon Kim, who had been attending the Orange County School of the Arts. The mission of the Dragon Kim Foundation is to inspire our youth to impact their communities while discovering and pursuing their passions. Visit the website at http://dragonkimfoundation.org.