Tag Archives: EPCF

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.