Tag Archives: EPCF

El Paso Community Foundation officials announced the extension of  the deadline for applying for one of its more than 100 scholarships.

The new deadline for applications is Monday, April 20.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced school closures and remote learning over most of the country. That has made it harder for graduating high school seniors and their counselors to work on scholarship applications.

The El Paso Community Foundation has more than 100 scholarships, some of which are available to students from a particular high school, planning to attend a particular university or interested in a specific field of study.

For more information, call Bonita Johnson, grants manager, at 915-533-4020, or email her at bjohnson@epcf.org.

To learn more, visit the El Paso Community Foundation’s page.

To apply, click here.

Tuesday morning, officials with the El Paso Community Foundation announced a new partnership with Get Shift Done to pay adversely affected hourly workers in the hospitality industry to work shifts for the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank.

Get Shift Done for El Paso provides wages of $10 an hour to workers left jobless by the coronavirus pandemic while providing meals for the disadvantaged. The program started Saturday, April 4 with the first of 40 daily shifts.

Get Shift Done was launched by Dallas business and community leaders Anurag Jain and Patrick Brandt with the support of their respective companies, community leaders, restaurant owners and nonprofit organizations. It was created to fill the gap between the reduction of volunteers and the increased need among food banks and other nonprofits with those from the food and service industry in need of supplemental income.

El Paso is the second city to roll out the initiative. The El Paso Community Foundation learned about the innovative program and contacted Get Shift Done.

With a short turnaround time, Get Shift Done for El Paso launched Shiftsmart technology to register workers for shifts at El Pasoans Fighting Hunger. The Shiftsmart platform and operations team manage the onboarding, matching, scheduling, dispatching, and routing of workers to perform shifts.

“Thanks to an incredible team in North Texas, we were able to adapt this innovative program,” said Eric Pearson, President and CEO of the El Paso Community Foundation.  “This helps hospitality workers — who represent 31% of unemployment claims in the area — fill essential, caring jobs, and maintain the dignity of hard work.”

El Paso State Rep. Cesar Blanco said, “There is a lot of need in El Paso right now during this difficult and challenging time as we are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers are out of work and families and seniors are struggling to put food on the table. That’s why I’m proud to support the partnership with the El Paso Community Foundation and Get Shift Done to employ displaced hospitality workers at El Pasoans Fighting Hunger food bank who will help provide meals for needy families. This partnership is a win-win for our community.”

El Pasoans Fighting Hunger, El Paso’s only food bank, distributes food to more than 130 partner agencies and programs, including pantries, churches, and shelters in El Paso, Culberson, and Hudspeth counties.

With jobless claims spiking to record levels, the Get Shift Done concept was hatched at just the right time by helping people work to earn a basic income. Within days, other cities, municipalities and countries contacted the organization about assisting them in meeting the needs of the food insecure in their own areas by utilizing the Get Shift Done template.

Patrick Brandt, President of Shiftsmart, said: “El Paso has a strong infrastructure in place to allow us to quickly lend support to provide meals to vulnerable people.”

For more information or to support this fund, go to getshiftdone.org/elpaso or epcf.org/getshiftdone.

The El Paso Community Foundation Jewel Box Series at the Philanthropy Theatre celebrates its sixth season with its first comedy show, first ballet, and first returning show, plus two one-of-a-kind concerts, and two new plays.

The Jewel Box Series, created by the El Paso Community Foundation to showcase local performing arts groups in the charming Philanthropy Theatre, presents diverse, unusual and inventive programs.

The 2019-2020 season features eight productions, each at 2:30 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month, from October 2019 through May 2020.

The season begins October 13 — during downtown’s Chalk the Block public art festival — with the The Cloud 915 Comedy Showcase, featuring six local comedians.

Singer-songwriter Emily Davis makes her Jewel Box debut on November 3, with Jewel Box returnee Jaimielynn Amato opening, in a concert called Two Women. Two Voices. Unplugged. The first half of the season concludes with a revised version of The Border Theatre improve comedy Icarus Was a Rookie: Run the Jewel Back, which debuted at last year’s Jewel Box Series.

The second half opens January 12 with We Have Each Other, three one-acts by Felix Arenas, that examine the meaning of family.

Our pre-Valentine’s Day show February 9 is The Straussiana, choreographed and directed by Rebecca Meza of Ballet in Session Academy. Mark Watts and Stephanie Karr’s Seven Deadly Shorts (March 8) is a series of 10-minute one-acts. Recording Moving Studios’ yo Soy project on April 19 is a multi-media production that examines identity.

Doug Adamz and Gene Keller join Teresa Tudury in the Southwest Songwriters Series, which closes the season May 10.

Tickets for each show are $16, on sale at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and online.  Season tickets are $103 (a 20% discount), on sale at the El Paso Community Foundation, 333 N. Oregon, by phone at 915-533-4020, or online.

The 191-seat Philanthropy Theatre is located above the Plaza Theatre box office on the second floor of the Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre annex.

The Jewel Box Series is produced in partnership with El Paso Live. 

El Paso Community Foundation Jewel Box Series at the Philanthropy Theatre – SCHEDULE

The Cloud 915 Comedy Showcase

Lando VC, Adam Dominguez, Anthony Austin Brown, Joe Rodriguez, Nico Adjemian and Dante Verduzco

October 13, 2019, 2:30 pm 

Our sixth season starts with laughter. Clean comic Orlando “Lando VC” Cordova hosts this showcase of Borderland stand-ups.

Two Women. Two Voices. Unplugged.

Emily Davis and Jaimielynn Amato                

November 3, 2019, 2:30 pm                         

Fresh from a national tour supporting Bad Religion, edgy singer-songwriter Emily Davis returns to her solo punk-folk roots. Opener is the “Songbird of El Paso,” singer-songwriter — and ace whistler — Jaimielynn Amato.

Icarus Was a Rookie: Run the Jewel Back

The Border Theatre

December 8, 2019, 2:30 pm 

This irreverent bit of interactive, improv theater debuted last year in the Jewel Box Series. It has evolved to include more local talent, but the audience still gets to order from a menu of 30 short pieces, which are performed in 60 minutes.

We Have Each Other       

Felix Arenas

January 12, 2020, 2:30 pm            

Few things are as important as family. Every family comes with its own struggles. This trio of one-acts by Felix Arenas explores those issues and how we feel safe within that family — because we have each other.

The Straussiana

Ballet in Session Academy

February 9, 2020, 2:30 pm                            

The music and dance of old Vienna come to life in this original production from Rebecca Meza of Ballet in Session Academy. The one-act classical ballet is set to music by Johann Strauss, Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss.

Seven Deadly Shorts

Palmore Productions

March 8, 2020, 2:30 pm

What could aliens, yoga, fortune telling, Cracker Jack, baggage, chess and murder possibly have in common?  SIN!  From Mark Watts and Stephanie Karr, the team that opened the first Jewel Box Series in 2014, comes this series of seven 10-minute plays that will take you down that dark path of the Seven Deadly Sins.

yo Soy project

Recording Moving Studios

April 19, 2020, 2:30 pm    

Written by Adry Love and directed by Diego Muniz, this bilingual production combines music, video projection, film and visual art. The culmination is a multimedia experience exploring personal and geographic identity. It’s part of the 2020 Nuevo Siglo de Oro Spanish drama festival.

The Southwest Songwriter Series

Doug Adamz, Teresa Tudury and Gene Keller

May 10, 2020, 2:30 pm

These three master “poet-composers” will take listeners on an epic journey using only melodies, poetry, and guitars in this special Mother’s Day concert. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Doug Adamz, an El Paso product recently returned from years in California, has worked with Joan Baez and the Kronos Quartet.

Teresa Tudury is a sultry-voiced Bay Area product described as a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Bette Midler. Gene Keller is an El Paso icon, a singer-songwriter-poet who has performed and inspired audiences for more than 40 years.

The El Paso Community Foundation (EPCF) and its supporting organization, the Down Syndrome Coalition for El Paso, announced at Saturday’s The Whole Hog fundraiser a tasty new business venture designed to employ people with special needs.

EPCF and DSC are teaming with Dallas-based Howdy Homemade Ice Cream to bring a franchise to El Paso.

“This is one part of the El Paso Community Foundation’s and the Down Syndrome Coalition’s commitment to provide employment to people with special needs,” said Eric Pearson, El Paso Community Foundation President and CEO.

Howdy Homemade, which has 13 stores, is known nationally for its emphasis on employing people with special needs.

Officials added that the program  “is part of a larger EPCF attempt to provide life and work opportunities for the special needs community.”

Recently, EPCF teamed with the national Project SEARCH, the Hospitals of Providence and the Socorro Independent School District to provide internships for those with developmental disabilities.

The Down Syndrome Coalition for El Paso was founded in 2015 to create a brighter path for the future of children with Down Syndrome and learning disabilities.

DSC established Every Little Blessing, a preschool for children ages 18 months to 5 years with Down syndrome. DSCEP’s annual The Whole Hog barbecue is its largest fundraiser.

Journey down the Gila River with three mothers in search of hope and renewal after the tragic loss of their children in a screening of the work-in-progress documentary Hearts on the Gila.

The El Paso Community Foundation (EPCF) Plaza Classic Film Festival (PCFF) hosts the screening, the first stop of a six-city tour that includes Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Silver City and Mesilla in New Mexico.

The screening will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, April 26 in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Foundation Room, 333 North Oregon, across from San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso.

The tour is presented by Heart of the Gila, New Mexico Wild , and the Center for Biological Diversity ; nonprofit groups dedicated to protecting and promoting wild and scenic protection for New Mexico’s last wild river.

Hearts on the Gila takes place four years after three mothers lost their teenage children in a tragic plane crash. The women embarked on a 36-mile kayak journey down the Gila River into the Gila Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico.

Their children, passionate environmentalists who were inextricably linked to the Gila, were studying the effects of a devastating forest fire when their plane went down in high wind. The mothers look for hope and solace on the waters of one of America’s last wild rivers and one of America’s great natural treasures.

In Garcia’s film, the women learn about themselves, their children’s legacies, and the importance of wild river systems to the spiritual health of humanity in a world where wild places are rapidly disappearing.

The tour of this work-in-progress version of Hearts on the Gila — which will be submitted to major film festivals around the world when completed this year — is designed to raise awareness of the challenges facing the river, which runs through the nation’s first official wilderness area.

The screenings will be an opportunity for audience members to engage in a direct way with the filmmaking process and to dialogue in person with the filmmaker and some of the film’s subjects.

Albuquerque filmmaker David Garcia and some of the film’s subjects will participate in a Q&A after the screening.

Doors open at 6 p.m. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served. There will be a cash bar (beer and wine). Parking is available nearby at the Chase/Mills Plaza Parking Garage on Oregon Street.

Admission is $10 at the door or online; all proceeds go to Heart of the Gila.

A musical earth rover, the Mexican Revolution, military veterans’ war stories, a musical afternoon devoted to love, an evening of choreography inspired by the night and more will be part of the fourth annual El Paso Community Foundation Jewel Box Series at the Philanthropy Theatre.

The Jewel Box Series, created by the El Paso Community Foundation to showcase local performing arts groups in the charming Philanthropy Theatre, has carved out a niche presenting diverse, unusual and inventive programs.

The 2017-2018 season, which features eight shows from October through May, will be no different.

It will feature music, theater, multi-media and dance programs by El Paso’s Impact | Programs of Excellence, Tumbleweed Collective, Eden Enterprises, Los Actores, actor-director Camilla Carr, the El Paso Society for Musicians of the Future and composer-musician Daniel Rivera, plus the Scaffolding Theatre Company of Las Cruces.

The Jewel Box Series is produced in partnership with El Paso Live, and is supported by the City of El Paso’s Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.

The 191-seat Philanthropy Theatre is located above the Plaza Theatre box office on the second floor of the Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre annex.

Tickets for the 2017-2018 season are $16, on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, September 15 at the Plaza Theatre box office, Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 800-745-3000, and online.

Season tickets for all eight shows are $103 (a 20% discount), on sale at the El Paso Community Foundation, 333 North  Oregon, by phone at 915-533-4020 or online.