What’s New

KYCC’s 15th Annual Benefit Concert

KYCC’s 15th Annual Benefit Concert at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall was a resounding success, bringing in over $300,000 for our services and programs. Over 1,400 attendees enjoyed the beautiful show, in collaboration with our longstanding partners, Korean American Music Foundation, the Korean American Women’s Association and Kollaboration.

Read more. 

New Intranet – The All-New KYCC WIKI

KYCC has launched the KYCC Wiki to empower employees with all the information needed to succeed. The new intranet is a dynamic user created/supported website with the familiar design and robust collaboration features of a wiki. While some pages are locked down for security, 80% of the pages are editable – including the home page! For example, please use and update the vendor database with vendors that you’ve worked with. Get started! And don’t worry about screwing it up, every version is saved. Are you a visual learner? Watch this short video.

Check it out. 

Building Stronger Families Program Hosts “Culture of Respect” Celebration

KYCC hosted its first “Culture of Respect” Celebration at the California Science Center on July 30 as the culminating event of our Building Stronger Families (BSF) project. Over the last 10 months, BSF parent participants—the program is heavily parent-led—worked together to address the issue of violence inside and outside the home. Over 600 parents and children attended the daylong event, in the atrium of the Wallis Annenberg Building for Science Learning and Innovation.

Read more. 

KYCC Participates with the National Night Out

KYCC participated in this year’s National Night Out to demonstrate solidarity with residents and law enforcement in our commitment for safe neighborhoods.

New KYCC Events Calendar

KYCC now has a new events calendar. Add your event here.

Departures

Employee Spotlight

Joanne Kim
CED – Low Income Tax Clinic Managing Attorney

Please tell us about yourself.
I grew up in Culver City, California until I was in high school. Then I went to Berkeley for undergrad and New York for law school. When I came back to LA in 2003, I settled in Koreatown with my family. So since 2003, I’ve been a resident of Koreatown and for the last 3 ½ years I’ve been working at KYCC. I always felt an affinity towards Koreatown. My family would always come to Koreatown to grocery shop, go to church, to go to restaurants and hang out with each other. Even though I grew up in Culver City, and I see Culver City as my hometown, I still feel very close to Koreatown.

Can you share with us something most people don’t know about you?
Most people don’t know that I play the Korean drums. I’ve been playing since college. It relates to the Korean student activist movement in Korea. So the Korean activists will use pungmul as a way to express their political ideas and their affinity to the workers and farmers. So when I went to college at Berkeley, I became part of a progressive student movement and we would practice Korean drumming a lot. Since then, I’ve been practicing and keeping up with my friends who do drumming. Sometimes I would go out to a rally and drum with my friends – I still do that, but I don’t practice as much as I used to.

Another thing that people don’t know about me is that I’ve been playing the piano since I was young. I haven’t practiced in a while, but music is something that is really important to me. I want to learn the banjo, so that’s my future project when I have more time and money. That’s my music goal!

I was part of a band for five seconds. After I graduated from law school, some friends and I formed a indie-rock band and I played the keyboard. The band didn’t last for long, we practiced for a month and disbanded. We didn’t even have a name.

What do you do in your free time?
I hang out with my friends and watch movies. I used to go see music shows a lot but as I get older I don’t do that as much. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of my time studying tax law and tax procedure. Since I became the managing attorney, I realized that I really need to know tax laws so I gave myself a year to learn tax law and procedure. I’m taking a course in UCLA Extension on tax procedure.

How has the transition from being a Development Coordinator to a Managing Attorney in the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic been?
For a little awhile I had to do both jobs because we didn’t have a replacement for the Development Coordinator. I had to juggle both jobs, and it was really difficult because we had a big grant deadline in the beginning of May. It was challenging. Now, I think I’m 98% transitioned into Managing Attorney, and 2% I’m still doing Development Coordinator tasks, but I think it’s okay.

The biggest difference between the two is that as a Managing Attorney, you’re working with clients and trying to solve their problems and issues. There is a lot of problem solving, client interaction, and I have to know the tax laws as well. As a Development Coordinator, you’re not interacting with clients at all – you basically work with managers to write grants to support the agency. After doing grant writing for three years, it’s challenging but it can be a little bit repetitive because you’re writing the same thing over and over. Grant writing is a job for someone who really likes to write and research.

How did you first get into Development Coordinator?
I graduated from law school in 2003 and was doing litigation for a while where I would go before the court and represent the client. There are a lot of rules that govern how you interact with the court and I didn’t enjoy it at all. I worked a little bit in public interest law, but I wasn’t too sure if that was the right fit for me either. So I took some time off and realized that I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector where I can make a contribution by using my writing and research skills. I realized I could become a grant writer, so I took a class at UCLA Extension on grant writing. There was a colleague here named Jay who told me KYCC was looking for a grant writer.

What do you love the most about your job? The most challenging about your job?
What I love the most about my job is working with a variety of clients on lots of different issues. I like problem solving and working with people. I like it when clients come to me with a problem and I have to figure it out and I take on their case and work on it some more to give them the right answer to solve their problem. They are so thankful – some people cry, and some people are so relieved that they don’t have an IRS tax problem anymore. It’s such a great feeling for me that I contributed to the clients getting better.

The most challenging part is learning the tax law. Tax law is so complicated, and there’s volumes and volumes of law that I need to learn so that I have knowledge and authority over the tax laws for the clients when they have questions. So I’m giving myself a year to learn that. Tax law is an ongoing learning process because they change every year.

What inspires you to do the work you do?
The reason why I do public interest law is because of my dad. My family immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, and my dad never had health insurance all through that time. There was no Obamacare or health insurance available unless you paid a lot. Eventually he got liver cancer and passed away very quickly, a month after I graduated from college. I was so upset and I realized instead of being upset, you start to see the systemic issues that are effecting your family and why there’s no health care. So you start seeing things in a systemic way. There are lots of issues that are affecting low-income working class families. So I went to law school to work on those issues that affects low-income working class families. I took a detour and worked at a law firm, but my ultimate goal was to come back to do public interest law. So my dad is my inspiration in working for low-income working class families. If he had healthcare or a livable wage job, we would have had resources to treat his liver cancer. When my dad was sick and in the hospital, I met so many Latino, Korean, other Asian-American, and African-American patients who were going through the same thing my dad was going through because they didn’t have money or were undocumented and didn’t have health insurance and were relying on the county’s indigent programs to help them. We need universal healthcare and livable wage for all workers, and I want to work on those kind of issues that affect low-income families.

What is your fondest memory to date at your time in KYCC?
My fondest memory was my last birthday. Lisa, Nayon, and Byron got me a Hello Kitty birthday cake and we had a little celebration at KOA. It was really funny because they got me a tiara and all these little things. That’s not me, I don’t wear tiaras and I don’t have Hello Kitty merch, but it was just so fun and thoughtful of them. I do like Hello Kitty, so it was really thoughtful of them to think of that and give me a cake to celebrate. I’m usually shy about celebrating my birthday with other people, but they made it so fun and memorable.

Where do you imagine yourself to be 10 years from now?
It’s really hard to think about that, but I would want to work in the LITC (low-income taxpayer clinic) sector somehow. The more  I learn about the taxpayer clinic, the more I feel as though it’s the right fit for me. The people who run the taxpayer clinic are so nice and so generous in helping one another. I really like the community that I’ve become part of in LITC. I hope to work in LITC sector, hopefully through KYCC. I hope to stay in my position, and hopefully KYCC will still have funding. I think I found my niche.

Do you consider KYCC a special place if so, why?
I think KYCC is a very special place because it’s a place that brings the diversity of Koreatown to our workplace. KYCC tried to truly reflect the community that we’re serving. I feel that we’re special because we’re the only organization in Koreatown that services the people who live here. It’s two-pronged – one is we reflect the community, and two, by reflecting the community, we are able to better serve the community.

Some quick questions:

Where is your hometown?
My hometown is Incheon, Korea. I moved to the States when I was nine years old, so my Korean vocabulary is stunted at third grade but I can still have conversation in Korean.

What is your relationship with Koreatown? 
Sometimes it’s a love and hate relationship. I love Koreatown because it’s so convenient. I live near the Metro stop, so I can take the Metro and go anywhere and explore L.A. I’m close to all the restaurants, so if I want to eat out, I can just step out and I’m right there at Madang gooksoo and other restaurants. The only thing I worry about in K-Town is the crime and I don’t think it’s as safe as we would like it to be. The gentrification that’s coming is good and bad. I have a mentor who did urban planning, and he told me that gentrification isn’t always bad when you have low, middle, and upper-income people mixed together and living together that brings resources to a typically low-income neighborhood – it can be good. So I hope that the gentrification of Koreatown is able to bring all those groups together to live in this area and bring more resources to low-income folks. But I feel like that’s maybe not happening, because when the condos are being built, I feel like they’re driving out the low-income residents. Displacement is not good. So I’m a bit ambivalent about gentrification. I’m a property owner in Koreatown, so it’s nice when nice malls and structures go up and increases property value, but I don’t want that to mean that low-income residents get displaced. I like living in Koreatown but I feel conflicted about the gentrification.

Where is your favorite place in Koreatown…and why?
This is really hard. My favorite favorite Korean restaurant is Kobawoo on Vermont and 7^th. They have delicious bossam – steamed pork belly. It’s so good, and if you love pork, you will love this. It’s really authentically Korean, and they give lots of side dishes that are also very good. Their lunch special is good.

Volunteer Spotlight

Melina Mae Castorillo
Communications Intern

Please tell us about yourself.
Let me paint a picture. I’m coming into my second year at USC studying communications and cognitive science. I’ve been interning at KYCC since February of this year, so it’s been almost half a year. Katherine wanted a media platform at KYCC, and I was interested in the impact of media, documentary film making and impacting people through videos and visual media. I was interested in that opportunity with KYCC and how they’re involved in the community.

Tell me how you first got involved in with KYCC. What was your first impression of KYCC.
I first heard about KYCC through a student service at an API community in USC called APASA. We also get newsletters from APASA, and the December/ January newsletter highlighted the TIE program, where you get paired up with other API organizations within the community, and KYCC was one of them. Originally, the position said Communications Intern – so I wasn’t too sure what I sent the application for. I applied on a whim on the last deadline because I thought it sounded cool and amazing. I saw that how KYCC was very involved in K-Town, and there were different departments that did different types of work.

My first impression was that KYCC is very fresh. I logged unto their website and saw pictures of family and children from Youth Services, and I thought that KYCC was a good organization in the community. I learned more at the interview and had a very good impression. I honestly came in a little bit unaware, but I learned so much about demographics and issues that KYCC addresses by looking at the website and talking with Katherine.

What do you do as a Communications Intern?
I manage social media accounts –facebook, twitter, instagram. Instagram is still under the works because were trying to figure out the aesthetics. I also work on press releases and media advisories, social media reports, and write up articles for the website. On top of that, we’re also starting to work on the agency video. Emily and I work on smaller projects that focus on different departments and projects. We’re making three videos for the summer: Environmental Services Clean Streets video, Summer Day Camp Video, and the last video can be a little flexible, but we’re thinking of a Kids Town video. We help film events and pick up interviews from clients, kids, parents, and staff members. We’ll put it together, edit it, and make a video of what the department does and why KYCC does what it does to better the community.

Can you share with us something most people don’t know about you?
I’m kind of afraid of birds and fish. It’s actually really bad, because even when a little bird flies across, I jump. I think birds are beautiful, but we just don’t get along. Maybe I’m scarred for life because of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds.  But birds are beautiful creatures.

What do you do in your free time?
Most of the time, I spend time with people – I’m really into one-on-one dates and hanging out. When I’m not socially interacting, I’m watching movies. I really like older movies – black and white, or movies between the 80s or early 2000s. My favorite genre is psychological drama-type movies. I also like to read through blogs and go through other people’s articles and learn something from them. Other than that, if I have a chance to go out, I like to film and edit videos. And also go to the beach, because we can go to the beach anytime in SoCal.

What do you love the most about your job? The most challenging about your role?
I love everyone in KYCC. The staff members are very kind and accessible, and easy for us to communicate and bring up new ideas. KYCC has a family environment — a space that fosters our confidence and conversations of new ideas on better ways to promote or take on projects. Katherine and Lisa are the two main people we work with, and they are always encouraging of what we do and the new ideas that we think of. The family atmosphere is very encouraging and help us move forward and have an open discussion about what’s going on and how to improve things.

Going back on the topic of improving things – Emily and I are thinking about making a flyer for trello and slack because they’re generally used for communications in our office. Right now, we’re stuck between email, trello, and slack. But in our transition between email and slack, there has been a lot of miscommunications. It’s like being split between dinosaur computers and new apps – and not everyone is on board. Everyone is kind of confused in the transition, and sometimes things get lost in translation. Confusion in technological communications is the most challenging.

What is your fondest memory to date of your time at KYCC?
Last Thursday, we went to go see the Kids Town site to take an agency video and talk to the kids. It was a very special part of the morning around recess before lunch – so the kids were in a food coma state. The kids were very welcoming and would come up to us and attack the cameras as I would talk to them about games. The kids were very eager to interact with us and welcomed us into the site. They showed me how their shoes lit up. I could understand how much love and energy the kids had, and saw how great their potential to grow was. The thing about KT is that they have different kind of program than other preschools. If they want to play, they can play, and teachers give kids somewhat of a control over how the day goes – they are more energetic, happier, and willing to learn. My favorite part of the day was how excited the kids were in front of the cameras —lots of posing for the camera and high-fiving.

Where do you imagine yourself to be 10 years from now?
I will be 29. I’m only 19 right now. I hope at that point, I will figure out what I want to do and what I want to be. I would want to have my own house, or at least my own apartment. Maybe marry, but I don’t know. I hope I will be financially independent. In terms of what I want to do, I have a couple of tasks in mind right now. Maybe media management or working with NPR. At this point, I hope to work in a good place doing nonprofit work and video production and visual media. Kind of like Alicia Keys, “We are Here” movement. I want to work in touching on big issues in our backyard that affects our family in understanding global issues by connecting something faraway close. Or maybe making video production. I can also be in something developmental psychology-related – could be publishing research papers or family counseling, but I’m not entirely sure. Hopefully by then, I would know.

Do you consider KYCC a special place if so, why?
I think KYCC is a very special place. Out of all the professional types of environment I’ve worked in, I’ve never seen the same kind of family atmosphere. KYCC has a very positive environment and I am happy to see and work with the people here. The community knows the work that KYCC does, so there is trust within the community. It’s very unique in that in all the departments around K-Town are very connective. KYCC definitely has a presence in the area and the community knows that. KYCC is very big in how much of a presence it has in the community and very small in that the agency is very humble as KYCC is able to  reach specific communities in a very family-like connection, not like a big corporate presence. KYCC is both big and small in the best way possible.

Some quick questions:

1. Where is your hometown? I was born in L.A. at Cedars-Sinai and  I lived in Philippines for a year. Our first apartment was in West Covina.

2. What is your relationship with Koreatown? A very simple one that involves work and play. I love Korean food. I’m very happy I work at KYCC and get to eat delicious food nearby – like soondubu and mr. coffee and various places.

3. What are your thoughts on Koreatown? I feel like in terms of aesthetics, K-Town is stuck between late 90s-early 2000s architecture except for couple of buildings on Wilshire. I think it’s kind of retro. A lot of the architecture is very different and interesting.

4. Where is your favorite place in Koreatown…and why? KYCC. Is that bad? Should I pick another place? It’s the truth. I spend the most time in K-Town here. I can say another place but it wouldn’t have any emotional attachment. KYCC has  great workers. Also, there’s cake every Friday – not a big part, but still a part of the reason why I like KYCC.

Community News

The Halal guys is finally here in K-Town! Get a taste of their savory bowls.

Historic Chapman Plaza is getting a makeover from its new owners.

In Macarthur Park, homeless folks join immigrants in the street vendor industry.

Uncover the history of Hollywood’s golden age in Koreatown, courtesy of Curbed LA.

Westlake’s Park Wilshire apartments get a $1 million makeover as anxiety over gentrification in Macarthur Park heavies.

KYCC Staff’s Favorite Food Spot(light)

Wiki Poki

3438 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90010 (Wilshire & Normandie)

It’s like deconstructed sushi in a big bowl. And it’s pretty healthy! Yum!

Submitted by: Ryan Allen, Environmental Services Manager

Cuisine: Poke bowls

What do you like about this restaurant?

“A giant bowl of rice, fresh greens, sashimi, ginger, spicey edamame, for $10 bucks. Light and delicious.”

Check out more staff favorites here. Do you have a favorite restaurant? Submit it here.

Birthdays and KYCC Anniversaries

Open Positions

Have some talented and driven friends? Let them know about our open positions.

• KT – Kids Town Assistant Teacher
• YS – Case Navigator
• ES – Summer Environmental Youth Program Supervisor
• ES – Environmental Specialist: Tree Planting
• CS – Administrative Assistant
• ES – Environmental Specialist: Graffiti Removal
• YS – Assistant Instructor
• PE – Lead Youth Organizer
• PE – Community Education Specialist
• CS – Counselor III
• ES – Energy Conservation Trainee

Take Note!

Know that you need to plan for retirement but don’t know where to start? J L Collins has released a refreshingly simple and profound guide to investing that you should read. Check it out. It’s called The Simple Path to Wealth. If you’re not the book buying type, his much regarded Stock Series is free.