LA county is the second largest school district in America.  Hundreds of thousands of kids returned to school two weeks ago within the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic. As such, the county is undertaking an extensive public health experiment whereby each student, teacher and school staff member have to get tested for Covid every week with no end in sight, regardless of vaccination status. Those who test positive stay home for at least 10 days.

Already by the end of the second week, LA Unified was reporting almost 3,000 active positive cases in their student and staff body, despite the fact that out of that only 7 cases were linked within the school setting. So no matter how hard everyone tries, it is very tough to keep it out.

With such difficulties, we have to look at the good that remains.  There are still many organizations trying to help others – which is needed even more at this time.  One example is the L.A. Education Recovery Fund which funded summer programs as well as important after- school programs run by dozens of L.A.-based nonprofits, including Woodcraft Rangers, LA’s Best, the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club. These programs benefit more than 30,000 children (and their parents), many of whom come from underprivileged families. To date, $10m has been raised in capital by the organization and it hopes that it will add more programs in the fall.  

Another initiative is LA Tech Cares which has raised $200,000 for the LA Education Recovery Fund. LA county’s poverty rate is one of the highest in the state of California. The fact that venture capitalists did not struggle so much in the pandemic made raising the money much easier, according to one of LA Tech Cares’ founders and Crosscut Ventures Managing Director Brett Brewer.