In this episode of The Business of Non-Profits, we speak with Cheryl Hsu, founder of 92130 Cares about their journey from identifying the needs in her area to creating a non-profit and beyond.

92130 Cares, Donate a Thanksgiving meal for a family in need

92130 Cares Facebook

Mentioned Tech:

https://www.signupgenius.com/

[00:30 ]

Stacey Lund:

Hi, everyone. You're listening to the business of nonprofits. We're talking to 92130 Cares, an organization serving the needs of the 92130 community by sharing resources, making meaningful connections, and spreading neighborly love. With me today is founder Cheryl Sue. Cheryl, thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:51 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

Thanks for having me.

[00:52 ]

Stacey Lund:

Why don't you take a couple of minutes and introduce yourself, the organization and mission and your role at 92130 Cares.

01:00 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

Great. I never thought that I would ever start a nonprofit organization. At the beginning of the pandemic, it became pretty clear to me that there were a lot of people who were hit harder by the pandemic, either the economic effects or the social effects. And I just felt compelled to do something. So it really started in September of 2020 when my family and I, we try to do some kind of volunteer work relating to Thanksgiving dinner. I had called all the usual organizations, and no one was offering anything because of the pandemic. So I went out on next door, made a post, and asked, hey, if anyone knows of a place where I can volunteer or sponsor a family, let me know. I'd love to do something with my family this year. A woman reached out to me privately and said, hey, I live in the community. We are really struggling right now, and we can't find a place to have Thanksgiving dinner. Would you consider sponsoring us? I responded and said, definitely, I would love to sponsor you. And, do you know of others who are struggling right now? She wrote back and said, I know many families in the community who are struggling. So that initial conversation with her really created this huge effort. She started connecting me and sending me names of 20 families that she knew of who either lived-in low-income housing or just lost a job or a parent was required to stay home to help with kids. And it started with me texting my book club group first and saying, listen, I've got a bunch of families. Would you like to sponsor a family, a local family for Thanksgiving? So everyone said yes. And that's when I started doing a bit of more research, and I found that there are actually over a thousand units in Carmel Valley that are considered low income rent units. And to get into those units you have to prove that your income is, around half of what the median income is. It was a real effort to sort of get out there, learn more about my community. I had, at the time, lived in this community for eight years, and I never knew the economic diversity that was here. I created a Facebook group, and it quickly grew to a thousand members. I reached out to see if anyone wanted to come door-knocking with me to sign up more people for Thanksgiving. And that first Thanksgiving in 2020, we had 150 families signed up. And on the other side, we were able to find private sponsors. So my neighbors, my friends, anyone in our Facebook group signed up to sponsor these families directly. And it was by whichever the recipient sort of felt would be most helpful. So it was either a grocery store gift card, a groceries, a precooked meal, or a restaurant gift card. During the height of the pandemic, when people were required to stay home and give up all of their regular social activities or going out or being in the community, that was a time when we were creating this thing where people were reaching out to each other in a way that we had never done before in our community. So it was cross cultures, cross economic differences. It was just really, really cool. So that's sort of the genesis. The very first project that we took on as 92130 Cares, we’re rolling it out again right now for 2022, so it will be our third annual sponsorship. We've done other projects with December holiday dinner sponsorship. We've done one for kids backpacks and school supplies where we have any family who needed help with a school backpack could sign up. And then we had sponsor families sign up to deliver sort of some school supplies to a family directly. And then our ongoing project right now is a farmers’ market. This has really taken on a life of its own. We run a free farmers market every single Sunday for the last year and a half. And we have partnerships with Whole Foods, Jimbo’s, Trader Joe's, where they donate their slightly cosmetically damaged foods or any food that they can't sell. So often it'll be a ripped packaging or crumpled box or produce with some bruised eggs. If there's a dozen eggs, one is cracked. They actually are not allowed to remove the cracked eggs, so the entire carton gets tossed. So we're happy to take those eggs and then put it out for a free farmer's market and invite the community to come shop for fresh produce for free. So we've had over 80 consecutive weeks of this farmers market, and it's become a real source of food for a lot of people in our community, especially since there is no public transportation, no food banks, no food pantries in our entire zip code. So, yeah, it's just been a great way to engage the community, make connections, and also rescue food.

[06:02 ]

Stacey Lund:

I love everything about that story, but let's unpack it a little. First of all, you have a full-time job.

[06:07 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

Yes, I'm a consultant, so I do have some control over my hours, but I do work.

[06:10 ]

Stacey Lund:

92130 Cares, for the listeners who don’t know what that is, that’s Carmel Valley San Diego. It’s an upscale community. Higher-income than median. And I would say everyone is very busy. But, I want to point that out because, those of us are in the pandemic who were, neighbors, helping neighbors, on your local buy nothing, donating to a food pantry, or you're actually getting food from a food pantry. The idea that you were like, let me help a family, let me help 150 families. So, making the decision to actually. Start the business steps, did a friend say to you, “You know what? I think this is bigger than both of us. You need to be a 501”. Because I know, I mean, you're a lawyer, so you were just like, I need some protection here. Let me do this. Or was it more like 150 families. That's a lot. Let's do some more good. Take the next step.

[06:58 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

Well, we were actually finding that there were some hurdles. If you're not a 501 (c)(3), it's harder for grocery stores to partner with you. People donating often want a tax receipt. So that was a very sort of logical step for us once we sort of completed our first project. And, I mean, I know nothing about nonprofits, and so I give so much credit to the seven other women who are helping me, and they've been the source of knowledge and drawing from their own experiences. Many of them are also working women. They're all moms, and they found time to help me in all of this in really big way. So I can't say that I've done this alone for sure. We've had a lot of help along the way.

[07:45 ]

Stacey Lund:

So talk to me a little bit about let's fast forward, right? You had this sort of organic growth, including this tremendous farmers market, which helps I think you had said in a previous conversation, like, 80 to 100 families every weekend.

07:55 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

It's for around 40 to 50 families every weekend, but we do it every single week. And we have lots of different families. We rotate among four low-income communities in the zip code. So we kind of go in a big geographical circle and we rotate every Sunday. And then we need around 30 to 40 volunteers to come in and help run the market every week.

[08:14 ]

Stacey Lund:

I think you would say that you would consider that your core program now because it's helping so many people and it's been so consistent that you don't want that to drop off. So talk to me now about post COVID. Right. So how has that been? Are you seeing the same level of engagement from your neighbors?

[08:30 ]

Cheryl Hsu:

Yeah, everyone coming out of the pandemic has actually been a bit of a challenge for all of us, myself included. My kids went from zero activities during the pandemic and being home all the time to now activities every day with dance and running and hockey. So, I think everyone's capacity for sort of giving of their time has really shifted. Our core group of volunteers are this incredible group of women, and we're all just trying to do our best, and we all just also understand that life is just getting very busy again, but the need is still there. So, the way, you know, the way I'm approaching this is very realistic. I mean, people have approached us and said, you need to franchise this and grow into other zip codes and create this model in other places in the city and kind of grow and expand. And first of all, that's not our mandate. Our mandate is a group of neighbors supporting neighbors in our zip code. But instead of expanding and doing more programs, I just want to make sure that we do our programs that we currently have, that we run them really well. And, you know, I don't drop the ball by not having enough volunteers on a Sunday and then not being able to deliver the food and set it up and distribute it on a Sunday when there are 40 to 50 families sort of relying on that