Nutritional Cooking Classes at Davis Street Community Center

A longtime advocate for low-income families in Alameda County, Rose Padilla Johnson played a key role in the 1992 establishment of the Davis Street Community Center in San Leandro. As CEO of the center, Rose Padilla Johnson has pioneered numerous programs that serve nearly 15,000 San Leandro and Alameda County residents each year.

In addition to running several daycare and medical centers, Davis Street Community Center helps local residents acquire valuable practical skills to improve their quality of life. The center’s Nutritional Cooking Classes utilize a well-equipped demonstration kitchen to offer hands-on training in the preparation of affordable, healthy food, which are prepared using groceries that have been donated to the food pantry.

A trained nutritionist offers guidance on shopping with limited resources, choosing the best products, and making informed choices when receiving food from the food pantry. The program offers printed, culturally relevant nutritional information in several languages, while live translation services are available in Spanish and Cantonese.

Behavioral Health Services at Davis Street Community Center

For more than 27 years, Rose Padilla Johnson has worked at San Leandro, California’s Davis Street Community Center, one of the state’s largest comprehensive family resource centers. Rose Padilla Johnson serves as CEO of the facility, leading the center in providing vital resources, such as childcare, family services, and healthcare, for San Leandro residents.

Along with medical and dental services for low-income residents, Davis Street Community Centers offers several behavioral health services for individuals in need. Regardless of immigration status or insurance, the Davis Street Primary Care Clinic provides low-cost counseling for individuals dealing with depression or anxiety, stress, or substance abuse, as well as crisis intervention in case of emergency.

Behavioral health services are available to children as young as age three, as well as adolescents and adults. Experienced mental healthcare providers utilize a number of modalities to help clients develop tools for improving relationships and making positive choices. When a client’s needs lie outside their scope, they can refer to wider community resources.

Childcare Programs at Davis Street’s Jefferson Center

Nonprofit leader Rose Padilla Johnson is a resident of San Leandro, California. For close to 30 years, Rose Padilla Johnson has led San Leandro-based Davis Street Community Center, Incorporated, providing critical support services like affordable childcare to area residents.

Every day, many parents are kept out of the workforce because they cannot afford quality childcare. Davis Street operates four centers that provide reliable and affordable childcare, enabling parents to get back to the workforce guaranteed the safety of their loved ones. One of these centers is the Jefferson Center in San Leandro, between Bayfair Mall and Jefferson High School.

Jefferson Center is open to children aged 2.9 to 12 years. It is licensed to care for 86 children a day. Childcare services are subsidized and applications are accepted all year round. The center prides itself on offering quality, age-appropriate enrichment activities, some of which include books and homework clubs. These programs are offered in a linguistically and culturally sensitive manner by specialized staff. Breakfast and lunch are also available.

On top of caring for children, Jefferson Center engages families through supportive services at its Family Resource Center stationed a mile away. Support includes food, job training and placement, clothing, and free medical care.

Poverty Brings Inequities in Long-Term Health

Rose Padilla Johnson, the CEO of Davis Street Community Center, has served the San Leandro, California organization for almost 30 years. Her extensive background in social service work and fundraising has enabled her to understand and address the needs of the area’s lower-income families for food, healthcare, childcare, and employment resources. At the center, Rose Padilla Johnson of San Leandro oversees a budget of more than $10 million, in service to thousands of Alameda County residents a year.

Well over 1 million of California’s children live in low-income communities, representing about 13 percent of children in the state. This brings numerous problems stemming from a lack of resource equity, including health disparities that can last a lifetime.

These issues particularly affect children of color, Latino children, and Native children, with all these groups between five and seven times more likely to grow up in low-income neighborhoods than white peers. Among the disparities that affect children in these communities is lack of access to affordable, quality medical attention, lack of access to nutritious food, and exposure to environmental toxins.

As inequity-related deficits build-up, they result in disproportionate numbers of people of color developing chronic diseases, putting them farther behind others in the ability to build well-paying careers and to raise their own families in safety.

Davis Street’s medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics aim to address some of these inequities, and its childcare centers and family support programs additionally work on leveling the playing field early to help ensure greater lifelong health and resiliency.

Davis Street Community Center Helps Over 1,000 Children with Programs

San Leandro, California-based Rose Padilla Johnson is the CEO of Davis Street Community Center, Incorporated. A non-profit innovator, Rose Padilla Johnson has launched and managed several programs through Davis Street to benefit San Leandro residents in need. In the organization’s 2018-2019 year, for example, she supervised to completion giveaway programs that brightened the lives of thousands of children in Alameda County. These programs included a back to school shoe giveaway, a holiday basket program, and bikes for tykes.

The shoe giveaway was conducted in partnership with a Nike Clearance Store at Marina Square Center. It took the form of a raffle. Through the initiative, new pairs of shoes were given to 150 children from low-income backgrounds ahead of the school year.

For the holiday basket program, Davis Street partnered with the Alameda County Fire Department and the California Highway Patrol, among others, to distribute toys and food to families in need. The organization provided a holiday feast to about 1,000 families, 1,919 children, and 245 seniors.

Lastly, through bikes for tykes, Davis Street partnered with officer Jason Jower and the San Leandro Police Officers Association to donate bicycles to children in need. Through collaboration, 1,000 new bikes were gifted to children from low-income backgrounds.

Davis Street Partners to Boost Programs for People with Special Needs

CEO of Davis Street Community Center since 1991, Rose Padilla Johnson has grown the San Leandro, California organization into one of Alameda County’s leading social service providers to people in need. Davis Street offers life skills education, counseling, and food and nutrition classes, as well as a complement of family service programs and essential medical and dental care, all under one roof. Under Rose Padilla Johnson’s direction, the organization realized major capital funding resulting in the purchase of its more than 22,000-square-foot Teagarden Street site in 2012.

In 2019, Davis Street added another collaboration to its growing list of community partners. It began working with Stepping Stones, which now offers programming out of the Teagarden Street location.

Stepping Stones is a San Leandro-based organization dedicated to people with special needs. Founded in 1975, Stepping Stones aims to reinforce and elevate existing curricula of vocational, social, and personal care skills its clients already receive. It currently serves hundreds of adults who have developmental disabilities.

The Stepping Stones curriculum centers on several tracks, including a health and wellness programming emphasizing consumer-focused education to inspire healthy living. Its employment component provides pre-vocational and interventional help that works on achieving success in the workplace for those with little or no previous job experience.

And, through its Artful Steps program, people at all stages of experience and ability experience the personal growth and transformation that can only occur through creativity. Stepping Stones also showcases participants’ artwork through local events and exhibits.

Volunteer Opportunities with Davis Street Community Center

An experienced administrator in the non-profit field, Rose Padilla Johnson has worked at the Davis Street Community Center in San Leandro, California, since 1991. In this position, Rose Padilla Johnson has implemented several programs and services to support low-income San Leandro families and individuals.

The Davis Street Community Center relies on generous donations as well as a robust team of volunteers to fulfill its mission of service to Alameda County residents. The center welcomes business groups of volunteers to donate time, gaining team-building experience as they contribute to a one-time project such as a large mailing appeal or a specific construction project.

Volunteer shifts in either the food and clothing departments or the administrative office can often fulfill court-ordered community service requirements while providing the donor the satisfaction of strengthening the community. For professionals with the capacity to donate their services, Davis Street Community Center is always in need of experienced administrative staff to deal with intake or filing, as well as clinicians such as dental and medical hygienists, nurses, optometrists, and nutritionists.