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CRSSLA, also known as "Crisis LA," distributed more than 30 million pounds of food during the COVID-19 pandemic at sites like Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Plaza.
Girls Club of Los Angeles distributed quality fresh food and staples, and educational materials with support from CRSSLA and agencies like Best Start and Sustainable Economic Enterprise of Los Angeles (SEE-LA).
Our local stakeholders are partners comprised of individual volunteers and agencies like Kedren Health.
Education became our first committee in June 2020. They have organized projects like this high-dosage tutoring workshop to mitigate the learning losses.
Food distribution became our first collaborative network project to meet basic needs as a high priority.
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It takes collective work for emergency response and recovery in times of crisis.
Greatest accomplishment
Collective work is CRSSLA's greatest accomplishment, in Robert's analysis.
“The greatest accomplishment that we have achieved is demonstrating how we could collectively work and uplift one another, not just during emergencies but as a sustainable movement in the community and faith-based space,” he said. “To tear down any barriers.”
Robert said he always knew he would have to return to CBI full-time, passing the torch to another lead agency to continue the work like a “Red Cross of Urban America.” That agency is LAM, with Cheryl as our Network Leader.
“Today, we are on the path to sustainability, creating something that will carry on for generations to come,” Cheryl said. “Thanks to Robert Sausedo for believing in me and for the plan we co-created for saving and improving lives.”
See Partners for the wealth of expertise and resources continuing to help address pandemic-related issues and other emergencies, including rampant chronic conditions like diabetes and climate change impacts like wildfires.
HISTORY
What does the number 32 mean in our history? What has CRSSLA accomplished and what structure do we use to organize our work? What does one of our co-founders see as our greatest accomplishment? Read below to find out!
Crisis LA
CRSSLA members could have been known for being “slackers.” That’s because of the acronym for our original name–SLCRS for South LA Community Response System. Wisdom prevailed as the 30 or so people who attended the first weekly planning meetings in March 2020 agreed to change to a name with the more appropriate acronym pronounced Crisis LA, or criss'luh.
No one can call the Community Response System of South Los Angeles a slacker. Not with more than 30 million pounds of food distributed during the pandemic, plus more than 184,000 tests given, and 880,000 masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) shared to guard against COVID-19 exposure, plus some 2,500 laptops distributed to students in at-home learning. See our Reports.
Other accomplishments and sponsorships since our establishment with 32 partners include:
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COVID-19 testing and vaccination centers at various sites
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A deal with Lyft to provide free transportation to the locations
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A vaccine navigation tool to inform participants
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Agreements with local medical providers for urgent care
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Information sharing of COVID-19 guidance for facilities
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COVID and vaccine awareness webinars
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Public and mental health trainings and program referrals
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Eight suicide prevention videos created by teens
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Case management and high-dosage tutoring workshops and peer groups
Supported by grants
Our original work was supported by grants totaling $10,000 from City National Bank and $25,000 from legacy partner USC under the recommendation of Steve Wesson, a managing director with the university’s Community and Local Government Partnerships office. We used most of the funds to award mini-grants of $1,000 each to our 32 partners to provide PPE and other support for their neighborhoods.
CRSSLA partners received another $4 million in grants through our support. We prioritized helping offer immediate relief at agencies including Girls Club of Los Angeles, which provided tons of quality fresh food and staples through weekly distributions.
A USC professor, Dr. Brenda Wiewel, has been wonderful in referring dozens of graduate students to serve as interns for CRSSLA and partners, which she continues to do. Other early participants with significant contributions in time and resources include LA Urban League, Brotherhood Crusade, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Kedren Health, Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corp., and LA County Department of Public Health.
Co-founders
In collaborative works like CRSSLA there are always catalysts who get the ball rolling. Those two people are our co-founders Robert Sausedo, President and CEO of Community Build, Inc. (CBI), and Cheryl Branch, Executive Director at LA Metropolitan Churches (LAM).
Robert, a Christian minister, put out the initial call to the 32 representatives and convened the first conference call after seeing long lines at grocery stores. He prayed for solutions for the food hoarding and shortages.
“When the pandemic in LA was announced on Friday, March 13, there were a lot of people rushing to stores, taking all the supplies, food, toilet tissue, etc.,” Robert said. “I made a list of 32 people and told my assistant to put out a notice for a conference call the next day, a Saturday. Everyone showed up.”
Local stakeholders
Cheryl was there and was quick to enlist her network of faith-based leaders to join the local stakeholders. With more than 30 years as a community leader and with a masters in community economic development and relationships at USC, where she earned a bachelors in public administration, Cheryl compiled the research and presentations still used today to make the case for an association of volunteer individuals and agency reps.
Their purpose? To ensure that authorities and suppliers would not neglect South LA as they doled out aid for the massive number of people experiencing sickness, unemployment, hunger, and more.
"When COVID-19 hit, our community was overlooked by decision-makers and resource holders, leaving us to fend for ourselves,” Cheryl said. “We knew we couldn’t keep following the same playbook. Too many lives and livelihoods were at risk. So, we came together around a shared purpose: to empower our residents and advocate for real change.
“We became the leaders we needed–leadership with strategic vision, an aligned mission, diverse local talent, and a foundation of compassion and love. By integrating technology through e-newsletters and text alerts to improve information flows, we built the groundwork for CRSSLA in its early years.”
In Robert’s words, “During our wartime, I was full-time president then went into infrastructure development. That was Cheryl. We were building the plane as we were flying it.”
Sourcing like crazy
Having formerly worked as a deputy for LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and in the financial services and energy efficiency industries, Robert brought his talent and experience rallying partners and marshalling resources.
“We were sourcing like crazy,” Robert said, sharing much of the credit with his VP of Special Projects and lead organizer, Ernest Williams. “We were calling medical suppliers all over the country.”
As fiscal sponsor for CRSSLA, CBI received a federal grant from the US Department of Agriculture for food and PPE distribution and other events held at Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Mall, CBI’s Leimert Park office, and at LAM and other churches like Robert’s fellowship, 88th Street Temple COGIC, a frequent program site in the heart of South LA on Vermont near Manchester.
CBI alone provided vaccinations for more than 10,000 people through events like these. CBI and LAM hired, trained, and supervised an army of community health workers to provide COVID-19 education throughout South LA.
Mental health was a major issue as more teens than ever committed suicide due to the isolation sheltering in place at home. CRSSLA connected South LA teens with therapists who guided the students in understanding depression and producing videos encouraging other kids to hang in there.
First committee
CRSSLA’s work today is largely organized through committees. Our first committee, education, started with a case management initiative with a series of virtual workshops and peer groups conducted by Dr. Angela Parker, director of training at Jenesse Center, and Dr. Nathan Sessoms, a Loyola Marymount sociology professor. Their goal was to train agencies to engage students in their at-home learning.
The committee followed with a “Developing a High-Dosage Tutoring” workshop at Kinecta Federal Credit Union in August 2022, their first in-person gathering attended by masked reps from some 30 agencies. The committee held monthly virtual peer groups with partners sharing their learning loss recovery work.
The project funded by a Weingart Foundation grant to CBI was led by our former education committee co-chair Naomi McSwain, then-executive director of the Al Wooten Jr. Youth Center. She enlisted the support of her board member, Dr. Laurie Inman, interim director of the Cal State Dominguez College of Education Student Success Center, to conduct the free tutoring workshop.
Naomi had come to CRSSLA like so many others–searching for support for their participants impacted by the pandemic. Invited by Cheryl, Naomi attended her first general meeting in June 2020, raising the need to help students at home with limited instruction from school teachers. At Robert’s challenge in the Zoom meeting, she agreed to form the committee.
“We were overwhelmed at the Wooten Center with more than 100 students enrolling in one week, looking for support after the schools closed,” Naomi said. “We had layoffs and couldn’t help all the kids online. I told my friend Cheryl about it and she invited me to the general meeting to share the needs.”
Naomi had been impressed with Alberta Brinson Moore, a Loyola Marymount African American Alumni Association board member who spoke passionately in the general meetings about the years of low academic achievement in South LA. Naomi recruited Alberta to serve as education committee co-chair. Naomi headed their academic enrichment team while Alberta oversaw education policy.
“Learning loss is a societal issue,” Alberta said. “It affects all of us. No one can afford to sit on the sidelines, not parents, families, or communities.”
A collaborative network
The high-dosage tutoring project is an example of what our committees have done collectively with more hands and more voices. It offers a model of what can happen when people with shared concerns and values work as one, as our vision for a “collaborative network” calls for.
“I came looking for help for the kids on our waiting list and all local students with limited access to teachers,” Naomi said. “I found it through the education committee. Together, we were able to advocate for what became free private tutoring offered by LAUSD for all of its students.”
That advocacy came through a district Zoom meeting attended by CRSSLA members.
Student recovery
As education policy team lead, Alberta attended school board meetings where she received an invitation to the meeting with LAUSD officials wanting feedback from community leaders on student recovery. The invitations were offered to representatives from community groups like CRSSLA.
"LAUSD realized that they needed an all-hands-on-deck approach," Alberta said.
Several education committee members attended the virtual meeting, sharing our initiative for high-dosage tutoring, which had been suggested by a partner, Alexis Colemen, executive director of Urban Scholar Academy in Inglewood. Brenda had provided the committee with a USC intern, Sandy Rios, who found the reports that informed the project.
Naomi, Alberta, and other CRSSLA members shared our finding that high-dosage tutoring was the chief recommendation for learning loss recovery. We said it was a shame that the second largest school district in the country didn’t offer kids the help needed, especially when officials knew the interventions required. We said the 500 tutors the district was offering wasn’t enough. We pointed to an article that said England was offering subsidized private tutoring to every student in their country for two years.
“We said, we know you’re tired like us of seeing the same low grade-level proficiencies year after year,” Naomi said. “I told them about the kids on our waiting list. I said, the need is great. The world is watching. This is our moment. The officials said they didn’t have the funding to do it. Next thing we knew, they did. Agencies can now use the virtual tutors like volunteers in their programs.
“We need to stop complaining about what our public officials do or don’t do. They need our willingness to share our concerns and work with them on solutions. I don’t know that our meeting prompted their expanded tutoring initiative, but it certainly let them know community members wanted it. CRSSLA is a great place to make your voice heard.”