Community Foundation Santa Cruz County celebrated the launch of the Fund for Women and Girls at the Watsonville Civic Center, with more than 100 supporters in attendance. Guest speaker Emma Mayerson, a 2010 honors grad from Tufts University who founded the Alliance for Girls in 2012, talked about solving problems like high absenteeism in Oakland schools and working with school district officials to draft a new policy on sexual harassment.

The blog, Great School Voices, wrote about key findings of Alliance for Girls' report, Valuing Girls Voices: The Lived Experiences of Girls of Color in Oakland Unified School District. While some general issues emerged for all girls, the most challenging data and narratives came around the experiences of young Black women.

Seven organizations will have a chance to further their efforts to help girls in or at risk of entering the justice system thanks to more than $650,000 in funding from the National Girls Initiative. Alliance for Girls was among the nonprofit alliances from across the country to be recognized by the initiative, a branch of the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, with its first Innovation Awards.