An organization in Lake Elsinore is committed to beautifying and strengthening the city, one project at a time.
The Dream Center of Lake Elsinore was launched in 2014 with a community festival and a day of community service. At the inaugural City Serve, 180 volunteers worked on 20 service projects across the city. Volunteers cleaned properties, built wheelchair ramps, painted houses and beautified their city. Since then, the organization has continued to host the event as well as ongoing community-service projects.
The Dream Center’s Adopt-a-Block program is a weekly effort focusing on a downtown Lake Elsinore area of need. Volunteers assist residents and beautify neighborhoods.
“We feel that it is our mission to restore and rebuild the people and property of Lake Elsinore,” Brett Masters, the organization’s president said. “Our motto is find a need and fill it, find a hurt and heal it.”
Pursuit of this mission also has grown into offering a summer sports league, after-school programs. And the organization is launching two tutoring centers to support students and their families.
The organization’s work also led to a merge with Hope Food Pantry. The Dream Center now serves more than 2,000 people who need food and hygiene products every month.
Services provided by the food pantry have been particularly critical during the coronavirus pandemic. While most of the Dream Center’s programs had to be put on hiatus, the organization focused energy and funds on serving the community through the pantry.
In April, the number of people needing assistance from the pantry doubled from 2,000 to 4,000.
Recently, the center received a grant from the IE Funders Alliance Rapid Response Fund through the Inland Empire Community Foundation to support the work at the Hope Food Pantry. The organization continues to need donations because many of its local supporters have been affected by the pandemic.
The Dream Center has relaunched its Adopt-a-Block program, instituting strict social distancing and focusing on picking up trash. The organization is also working with the school district to offer tutoring that follows safety guidelines and works with small groups of kids in settings where they can socially distance. The center is looking for volunteer tutors and money for backpacks with school supplies specially tailored to the unique stay-at-home situation.
The center hopes to help youths who may be left behind with the current remote-learning situation get extra assistance. While the organization supports youth education and has helped families with food, utilities and rent, the most important thing it does is create a community of support, Masters said.
“Poverty is not just a lack of money or material things, it’s a lack of healthy and helpful relationships,” he said. “We’ve seen people rise to the challenge, get clean, get off the street, reconcile with family members and rejoin the workforce.”
In 2019, volunteers put in 15,000 hours and removed more than 2,600 bags of trash and served over 12,000 adults and nearly 6,00 children through all its programs. While the Dream Center has had to adjust the focus of its projects, it remains dedicated to continuing its work.
Masters has seen a heightened awareness and passion in people wanting to help during the pandemic and hopes that this will continue.
“There is something that each and every one of us can do to make a difference,” Masters said. “We have the power to make our community what we want it to be.”
Information: 951-376-3703 or https://www.dreamcenterle.org/
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August 08, 2020 at 03:00AM
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Dream Center of Lake Elsinore beautifies, helps city - Press-Enterprise
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