Our Mission

The mission of Community Action Partnership is to enhance the quality of life in Orange County by eliminating and preventing the causes and effects of poverty by mobilizing and directing resources to programs that assist, educate and promote self-sufficiency.

Founded in 1964, the Community Action Partnership of Orange County began with the Board of Supervisors, faith-based and community leaders who saw poverty rising in affluent Orange County in the early 1960’s and the lack of resources to deal with the root causes. They formed the Community Action Council and designated to receive the Community Services Block Grant funding. See Eligibility Guidelines.

Over the years, this agency has created Orange County Head Start, Legal Aid Society, Women’s Transitional Living Center, Pacific Asian Center for Employment, Neighborhood Youth Corp, Anaheim Independencia Community Center, Community Mobile Health Clinic, Community Mentor Partnership of Orange County, First Things First Coalition, Orange County Hunger Coalition and many other programs.

We unite the community to bring solutions to impact problems by helping people and changing lives.

Today, Community Action Partnership of Orange County has over 100 employees and a budget of over $15,000,000 to help people and change lives. We provide and mobilize resources to help people help themselves, provide safety-net services for those who need help, and work with community leaders to bring solutions to community problem and build stronger and healthy communities. We serve persons at or below the federal poverty level.

• Our Orange County Food Bank distributes close to 16,000,000 pounds of food to over 720,000 low-income persons annually. 480, 809 pounds of fresh produce was distributed.

• Our OC WORKS program helped 41 unemployed clients with 14 obtaining jobs. OC WORKs enrolled 33 clients in employment case management services for job placement. 20 out of 33 persons (61%) have successfully secured employment. 3 out of the 33 persons (9%) are enrolled in occupational training and 2 persons (6%) are enrolled in work services to gain work experience. Clients placed into unsubsidized work earned an average of $12/hour. 90% of those placed into employment earned a "livable wage" determined by local standards. 25 clients obtained diplomas. OC WORKS helped 4,655 low income persons with safety-net services.

• Our Family Economic Success Program helped 292 clients to obtain $192, 257 in Earned Income Tax Credits and other tax credits. We helped a total of 1,170 clients maintain a household budget that resulted in creating $676, 763 in savings. Additionally, we work with an EITC Collaborative that helped another 200 clients countywide to receive a total of $1,091,088 in tax refunds with $763,162 of which was EITC dollars. This is in addition to the agency's own EITC program.

• We helped a total of 280 low-income persons to join community boards, neighborhood councils, and other formal organizations that make decisions that impact their communities.

• We engaged 1,752 low-income persons in non-governance community activities. We provided consumer education to 42, 443 low-income persons to help them acquire skills and knowledge to help themselves.

• We helped 18 low-income families to obtain a home.

• We maintain independent living for 26,366 seniors. We helped 4, 049 persons with disability to maintain their independent living.

• We made payments to energy providers and landlords for 9, 951 low income clients to prevent utility shut off or to prevent being displaced from their homes because they couldn’t pay rent.

• We improved housing conditions and helped over 1,171 low-income households by weatherizing their homes and lower their energy costs reducing their energy burdens through conservation measures.

• In helping kids to succeed, we helped 429 low-income youths to reduce their involvement in the criminal justice system. 48 youths stopped engaging in risky behaviors. 105 youths improved their social and emotional development. 2,022 increased their knowledge and skills to make better choices to improve their physical health and development. 212 youths were helped to succeed in school. 24 parents improved their parenting skills. 4, 920 youths improved their diet and nutrition. 675 low-income students received computers to help them to succeed in school.

• In helping seniors and families to access healthcare, we helped 211 seniors to enroll in the new MediCare Part D program so that they can continue to get their medicine. 135 low-income persons were assisted in their application to obtain Medi-Cal at our Family Resource Centers.

• To create healthier communities, in partnership with ABC7, Kaiser Permanente, St. Joseph Hospital, Albertson's, Health Care Agency and others, CAPOC lead the Steps to Healthy Living Campaign to promote making healthy food choices to improve the health of low-income communities. The Steps media campaign reached 16,057,320 persons with coverage on ABC7 news, comments by Newspersons, Public Service Announcements, articles and ads in the Orange County Register, articles in ethnic presses, displays at Albertson's and Sav-ons, and other media. 36,680 children between the ages of 9-11 years were reached with food demos at Farmer Markets and festivals. 4250 were reached through social education displays in ethnic retail markets. 4494 school age children between the ages of 9-11 years were trained by 300 school teachers who were certified to use the Healthy Living curriculum.

• Community Action Partnerships is helping to end poverty and mobilizing resources to eliminate it.

For over 40 years, this very successful partnership of community leaders, faith-based organizations, government agencies and local businesses brought diverse leaders together to solve community problems and has generated resources that continue helping people changing lives.

Our key strategies are:
Alleviating hunger and poverty ◊ Helping children and youth succeed
Strengthening and supporting families ◊ Promoting self-sufficiency
Building vital and safe neighborhoods ◊ Supporting vulnerable and aging
populations