By Lori Shepherd

Since the 1950s, OCCUR has been functioning as a catalyst for change in Oakland’s marginalized and deprived communities, becoming a fixture in the East Bay region, focusing on cultural, social, and economic development in areas that need their expertise.

Idealism motivates the skilled and dedicated professionals and volunteers who have kept OCCUR relevant for decades. Over the years, the nature of the challenges they face have changed, as they are currently working to find solutions to homelessness, school closures, dwindling Black homeownership, and a lack of access to learning technical knowledge and skills that prevents members of underserved communities from finding suitable employment. OCCUR was formed to assist people of color and other marginalized groups who have been most victimized by long-term inequalities of wealth and opportunity, and their dedication to that mission is reflected in their determination to evolve and grow.

Across the East Bay, community activists, nonprofit professionals, neighborhood leaders, and families struggling to overcome difficult circumstances understand how essential, proactive, and effective OCCUR has been for all these years. Their capacity-building initiatives have elevated the fortunes of many nonprofit and faith-based organizations, including the Lend a Hand Foundation, a highly successful Oakland-based nonprofit that has benefited tremendously from its ongoing association with OCCUR.

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The Lend A Hand Foundation is a youth-focused nonprofit that offers vital assistance to children, adolescents, and families facing arduous challenges or debilitating life circumstances.

Their diverse initiatives are designed to help the underserved experiencing poverty, deprivation, illness, or other stressful emergencies, by providing them with access to immediate essential aid and life improving goods and services of all types. Lend A Hand has received the most attention for its free backpack program, which provides school-aged children from deprived communities with backpacks stuffed full of all the crucial supplies they require at the start of each school year.

When the Lend A Hand Foundation opened its doors in 1997, it had little to rely on good intentions. Funds were short and experience at running a nonprofit was even shorter. Executive Director Dee Johnson knew she would need help to keep the project viable, and that’s why she began attending the free workshops OCCUR offers for aspiring nonprofit organizers.

“The workshops brought so much enlightenment to what was needed to survive,” Dee Johnson told us during a recent interview.

Sponsored jointly by OCCUR and the San Francisco-based Foundation Alliance with Interfaith to Heal Society, or FAITHS, the ‘A Model Built on Faith’ workshop series is offered annually at no cost to administrators and volunteers who run or serve faith-based or secular charity organizations in the Bay Area. The workshops combine individual coaching with small intensive group exercises and activities and are designed to help participants develop the skills and knowledge necessary to build stable organizational structures, find financing sources, create highly impactful individual and community uplift programs, and promote the empowerment of marginalized neighborhoods and people.

During the pandemic, the staff at Lend a Hand developed and implemented a comprehensive plan of action that included a safe and effective mix of virtual and in-person engagement. Despite lockdowns and quarantines, they continued to deliver vital assistance to the most vulnerable.

According to Johnson, the organization’s involvement with OCCUR played a big part in their capacity to rise to the occasion.

“Having gained a lot of knowledge from the esteemed management team, coaches, and facilitators, we were able to sustain,” she said. “Had we not received the knowledge through all the workshops we attended, we would not have been able to face the challenges when this very frightening situation occurred.”

Lend A Hand plans to distribute their signature backpack school supply kits to 25,000 underserved students in Oakland and Alameda County for the 2022 – 2023 school year.

Recently, OCCUR was in the news for a most surprising reason. In March the offices of the organization were burglarized and vandalized. Despite this temporary setback, organization leaders have no plans to slow down.

“With the ramping up of our capacity-building programs, OCCUR is not letting the burglary derail us,” Charla Montgomery, OCCUR’s program consultant, told the Post News Group. “Now more than ever, it is important that OCCUR reaches as many communities as possible and all those committed to positive change throughout the Bay Area.”

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