Continuing its effort of mobilizing college students and young adults to remedy community issues, San Diego-based Embrace was awarded with a $20,000 grant from The California Endowment (TCE), for its focus on improving the status and health of California communities.

This is the third year in a row that Embrace has been granted funding from TCE, the largest health foundation in the State of California, to support its programs and events. In 2009, the non-profit received a planning grant for $15K from Dr. Winnie Willis, a TCE board member. Last year, TCE provided Embrace with $35,000 as operational support.

“The funding is used for operational support so that Embrace as an organization can continue to remain buoyant and serve the San Diego community,” said Sean Sheppard, Founder and CEO of Embrace. “These funds will be used to hire college student interns, obtain general liability insurance, buy supplies needed for serving civilian and veteran communities, purchase food for the homeless, and acquire materials for restoring the homes of disabled veterans in the City Heights area of San Diego.”

Other organizations regularly request funding from the TCE, but most are denied; whereas Embrace was selected based on merit and existing funding.

“The California Endowment has a pristine track record when it comes to funding organizations that improve the health status of the San Diego community. We are honored to be one of the organizations in which TCE believes strongly enough to invest in,” announced Sheppard.

For more information about Embrace and its programs, visit www.embrace1.org.

Embrace, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, connects universities and colleges with local government to create a community outreach/service-learning model that utilizes college students to remedy community problems such as health and homelessness on a volunteer basis. His ultimate goal is to bring about legislation that makes community service mandatory for all college students that attend state funded institutions of higher education. In 2007, Sean Sheppard began volunteering his time to serve homeless civilians and veterans once a week with the San Diego Chargers and soon discovered that he had a passion for improving the lives of the homeless population.

Visit www.embrace1.org for more information.

7290 Navajo Road, Suite 109 San Diego, CA 92119

This release was published on openPR.