Who we are:
Our Mission:
Transform Highway City and Central Unified School Communities into healthy communities of hope through holistic means.
Our Purpose:
Our work focuses on revitalizing the area West of 99 in West Central Fresno (Central Unified School district) by bringing resources & infrastructure to neglected neighborhoods in our community. These distressed neighborhoods suffer from high poverty rates, low mobility, and limited access to resources. We are working with partners and collaborating organizations to bring sustainable change to the area through development, resources, information, and education to make the area a healthy, sustainable community for all the residents who call this area HOME!
Our Values:
• The inherent dignity of all people.
• Education and Vocational training as key achievements toward community strength.
• A community working together to provide solutions.
• Spiritual formation as vital to developing a self-less perspective.
• That the best leaders for a community are found within the community.
• Partnerships and collaboration are vital to sustaining effective and efficient work with the community.
• Education and Vocational training as key achievements toward community strength.
• A community working together to provide solutions.
• Spiritual formation as vital to developing a self-less perspective.
• That the best leaders for a community are found within the community.
• Partnerships and collaboration are vital to sustaining effective and efficient work with the community.
Our History in the Community:
Highway City Thrift Store started operations in 1983 as a ministry to the community. It has developed significantly from there.
We are a private, nonprofit, nondenominational organization. The umbrella non-profit organization of Highway City Community Development was founded in 1995 and incorporated as a 501(c)3 in 1997 to reach a broader scope in the Highway City/West of 99 area. This is the building block to a stronger foundation in the Highway City Community area as well as the area surrounding Central Unified School District, where we focus on a philosophy of going from helping people help themselves!
Profits from the store remained in the community by supporting such programs as the Food bank/Pantry, the Job training/Work Program, Life skills and Community Service program all at Highway City Thrift and the After School Learning Centers, Summer Enrichment programs for youth and sponsorships.
In 2000, a lady by the name of Gloria Aldama who attended Central Community Church and lived in the Sierra Mobile Home Park, saw the need to work with the children of that complex in increasing their reading level. She herself was a woman of few resources, but started out of her own mobile home a reading program with the children. Gloria passed away in the summer of 2001 of scholaderma, a painful disease she had lived with for many years, yet to her last days, had a passion to see the children succeed. Ed Winchester, after his retirement from the Fresno Police Dept., continued the program at Central Community Church for a few years afterwards. In her honor, HCCD was able to raise the funds to purchase a double-wide mobile home at Sierra Mobile Home Park, where the Gloria Aldama Learning Center was born. Summer learning & enrichment programs for the children at SMP were held there for over 15 years, as well as movie nights and community events.
Nine years ago, HCCD started two Afterschool programs one at Gloria Aldama Learning Center @ SMP and one at the Courtyard Apartments.
Those programs ran the entire school year, and served over 80+ children on a regular basis during the school year.
In late 2014, a monthly Fresh Food distribution, and ESL classes for parents, were added for the community.
In 2015 we added and expanded our community summer activities for families in a partnership Fresno County Libraries- so the great shows & reading programs were in our area.
We added Community events, Saturday Sports & Recreation, we've worked with Toys for Tots, and continued our work as partners with Central Unified to families in crisis.
The dream to build a community resource center was reborn in 2015 as well, after plans lay fallow due to the recession. The dream became reality with the completion of Phase I of a multi-layered project and a 5,000 sq foot center was opened to the public with great Resource partners as co-tenants. Over 50+ new services/programs/resources were offered during the 1st full year of operation and we are just building steam to the great things to come in our area!
We are a private, nonprofit, nondenominational organization. The umbrella non-profit organization of Highway City Community Development was founded in 1995 and incorporated as a 501(c)3 in 1997 to reach a broader scope in the Highway City/West of 99 area. This is the building block to a stronger foundation in the Highway City Community area as well as the area surrounding Central Unified School District, where we focus on a philosophy of going from helping people help themselves!
Profits from the store remained in the community by supporting such programs as the Food bank/Pantry, the Job training/Work Program, Life skills and Community Service program all at Highway City Thrift and the After School Learning Centers, Summer Enrichment programs for youth and sponsorships.
In 2000, a lady by the name of Gloria Aldama who attended Central Community Church and lived in the Sierra Mobile Home Park, saw the need to work with the children of that complex in increasing their reading level. She herself was a woman of few resources, but started out of her own mobile home a reading program with the children. Gloria passed away in the summer of 2001 of scholaderma, a painful disease she had lived with for many years, yet to her last days, had a passion to see the children succeed. Ed Winchester, after his retirement from the Fresno Police Dept., continued the program at Central Community Church for a few years afterwards. In her honor, HCCD was able to raise the funds to purchase a double-wide mobile home at Sierra Mobile Home Park, where the Gloria Aldama Learning Center was born. Summer learning & enrichment programs for the children at SMP were held there for over 15 years, as well as movie nights and community events.
Nine years ago, HCCD started two Afterschool programs one at Gloria Aldama Learning Center @ SMP and one at the Courtyard Apartments.
Those programs ran the entire school year, and served over 80+ children on a regular basis during the school year.
In late 2014, a monthly Fresh Food distribution, and ESL classes for parents, were added for the community.
In 2015 we added and expanded our community summer activities for families in a partnership Fresno County Libraries- so the great shows & reading programs were in our area.
We added Community events, Saturday Sports & Recreation, we've worked with Toys for Tots, and continued our work as partners with Central Unified to families in crisis.
The dream to build a community resource center was reborn in 2015 as well, after plans lay fallow due to the recession. The dream became reality with the completion of Phase I of a multi-layered project and a 5,000 sq foot center was opened to the public with great Resource partners as co-tenants. Over 50+ new services/programs/resources were offered during the 1st full year of operation and we are just building steam to the great things to come in our area!