Long Beach Martin Luther King Center Inc

The Long Beach Martin Luther King Center is a community-based organization dedicated to improving the health, human welfare, and educational attainment of the underserved youth, families, and individuals of the North Park community. The organization achieves this by sponsoring innovative programming and support services including cultural enrichment, youth empowerment, and hands-on learning opportunities.

The Long Beach Martin Luther King Center enrichment programs aim to provide fun, practical methods for engaging youth to use academic and life experiences to explore and discuss the world around them. Our fall programs meet weekly for 45 minutes and build on our overarching goal of teaching our youth 4 basic concepts - how to:

• Receive directions
• Follow directions
• Be part of a team
• Feel confident

Our current programming is limited to activities which require minimal financial resources. However, to continue to grow and expand to align with the needs of today’s youth, our fundraising goals span 3 key areas:

• Enrichment programs – supplies and fees for outings to supplement our structured recreation activities, academic enrichment, and hands-on learning with events and relevant trips to expand the experience with a “listen, see, do” end-to-end experience
• Office equipment – our printers, copiers, scanner, fax machines, and phones are dated and slow down our ability to quickly process requests and share information with our constituent community
• General operating – Other general support is needed like providing transportation for our growing number of participants. Currently we have 65 youth enrolled and only a single, 15-passenger van to use for regular transportation. This severely limits many of our excursion options.