Jubilee Consortium

Formed in 2001 as a collaborative effort by inner city Episcopal churches to serve low-income communities in Los Angeles, Jubilee Consortium's mission is to create healthy and just neighborhoods by providing safe, culturally sensitive, affordable programs for healthier living and opportunities for personal development. Committed to the values of inclusion, dignity, justice and peace; Jubilee partners with accessible, trusted neighborhood institutions and community members to serve as agents of healthier living, community transformation and empowerment. Its programs promote health and develop leaders. Contact information: Rev. Jaime Edwards-Acton, Executive Director, (323) 469-3993; email –jaime@jubileeconsortium.org; website - www.jubileeconsortium.org

Jubilee currently has two programs: The Health Justice Project (HJP) and the Episcopal Urban Internship Program (EUIP). The HJP is a multigenerational health education, fitness and leadership program offered in 10 low-income communities that empowers participants to effect healthy change in their homes and neighborhoods. It has three components: (1) physical fitness activities, (2) health and nutrition education, and (3) life skills and leadership development. Current Project sites include downtown Los Angeles (two sites), Highland Park, Hollywood (three sites), Inglewood, Hawthorne, and Long Beach (two sites). The goal of the Project is to reduce barriers to improved health, nutrition and fitness, at all ages, faced by low-income communities of color by offering regular fitness activities, nutrition education classes, and health support groups to low-income, mostly Latino individuals and families. It also provides leadership development to build capacity in health advocacy and community-wide change. Jubilee recognizes the unique importance of health programming in reducing community violence and as a result, the HJP has special emphasis on youth. Teens and young adults are engaged through sports activities and are provided with a safe, healthy environment, with a curriculum and planned programming to help them develop and apply life and leadership skills. The HJP model is driven by community participation and ownership.

The mission of the Episcopal Urban Internship Program is to nurture future community service leaders. The EUIP is a year-long service learning project of the Jubilee Consortium. Each fall, EUIP gathers a new class of college graduates from across the United States to live and work for change in some of Los Angeles County's most innovative and effective social service agencies. The EUIP presently has 20 year-long interns who volunteer 40 hours/week at agencies serving the homeless, abused children, at-risk youth, poor families and persons living with HIV/AIDS. The EUIP has also developed an emphasis in serving charter schools. This effort supports the HJP's targeted efforts to invest in youth health and leadership development.