Pasadena Community Foundation’s is proud to announce this year’s Pasadena Child Health Foundation (PCHF) grants, which total $464,000 and will support 19 nonprofits serving children and youth in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre. PCHF has been a fund of PCF since 2016.
Unprecedented mental and physical health struggles
The PCHF grant program awards funding annually, and this year, PCF’s Eaton Fire Relief & Recovery Fund provided additional resources to increase the dollar amounts and numbers of grants. This year’s program also adopted a special focus on supporting youth in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire, as the PCHF Advisory Board recognized that young people are struggling with unprecedented mental and physical health struggles.
“We know from research that children are particularly vulnerable during and following natural disasters,” explains PCHF board chair Scarlett Powers Osterling. “Beyond the immediate trauma and harm caused by natural disaster exposure, children also may suffer longer-term physical, psychological, and educational deficits. We took care this year to direct funding to programs and organizations that will help provide stability, nurturing, peer support, and lots of fun as the schoolyear winds down and summer begins.”
David Spiro, with the Pasadena Educational Foundation (PEF), notes that the fire’s impact was deeply felt among PUSD families, schools, and staff. “More than 10,000 of PUSD students and their families had to evacuate their homes, and about 1,200 students and 250 staff lost their homes and apartments. Many hundreds remain displaced. The entire community has been traumatized.” PCHF awarded PEF a $60,000 grant to assist in hiring a new full-time nurse practitioner to enable the PUSD Primary Healthy Clinic to be open five days a week beginning this summer and throughout the 2025-26 school year – a move that gives PUSD families increased access to vital physical and mental health services.
Spiro also shared with PCHF that “other communities that have experienced natural disasters have informed us that a peak in mental health crises occurs six months after the event, which will be after the end of the school year.” For that reason, the PCHF Advisory Board directed $180,000 of this year’s awards to six organizations that host summer camps: A Noise Within, Boys & Girls Club Pasadena, Stars, Pasadena Sierra Madre YMCA, Better Today Better Tomorrow, and LA County Park & Recreation. This funding will allow the organizations to provide scholarships to fire-impacted families and in some cases hire mental health specialists who incorporate a trauma-informed approach to their work.
2025 Pasadena Child Health Foundation Grantees
A Noise Within
Better Today, Better Tomorrow
Boys & Girls Club Pasadena
Door of Hope
Elizabeth House
Families Forward Learning Center
Flintridge Center
Foothill Family Service
Foothill Unity Center
Girls on the Run in LA County
LA County Parks & Recreation Dept.
Pasadena Educational Foundation
Pasadena Public Health Department
Pasadena Sierra Madre YMCA
Planned Parenthood Pasadena & SGV
Rose Bowl Aquatic Center
Stars
Union Station Homeless Services
Young & Healthy
About PCHF
Established in 1951, but with roots reaching back into the 1920’s, PCHF promotes the mental and physical well-being of children and youth residing in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre. PCHF became a fund of PCF in 2016 with a $6 million gift, which at the time was the largest in the history of the Foundation. As a PCF fund, PCHF has disbursed more than $2.1 million to local nonprofits focused on children’s well-being, including Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena, Young & Healthy, Families Forward Learning Center, Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, Girls on the Run, and Union Station Homeless Services. Learn more on our PCHF webpage.
