October 11, 2021
Having worked with her previously at the YMCA, Past President Paul Andresen introduced our speaker, Sjany Larson-Cash, the Community Services Director of the City of Anaheim. Ms. Larson-Cash has now been with the city for 24 years.
Being Community Services Director, Ms. Larson-Cash oversees Golf, Library Services, Parks and Capital, Recreation Services, and Human and Neighborhood services. That is a lot of territory to cover. For instance, Anaheim has four branch libraries that served over 1.4 million last year alone and circulated almost 1 million library materials. With the pandemic, they offered new curbside services to 12,500 patrons and circulated 78,500 materials
Maintaining the fire clearance, recreational amenities, and play fields is constantly in operation. Following the pandemic, keeping the parks safe with the COVID response saw the installation of 101 soap despisers in park restrooms and 12 hand sanitizer stations in parks without restrooms. Other parks, such as Aloe Green Park, Julianna Park, Wagner House, Maxwell Dog Park, Lincoln Park, and Barton Park have all had major improvements including KABOOM playground installations, parking lot additions, and fitness/exercise equipment added.
Recreational Services assist the community. During the pandemic, park rangers assisted with food distribution centers, in addition to making 557,865 public contacts. They also provided Camp Venture Fall Semester, a distance learning hub for working parents and partnered with Vineyard Anaheim to distribute food at the Brookhurst Community Center to 400 families weekly. They transported 15,600 bags of shelf stable food and produce bags and served food to approximately 60,400 residents.
In Human and Neighborhood Services, Virtual District Community meetings facilitated 36 neighborhood improvement program district meetings. They coordinated 58 neighborhood clean-up campaigns and outreach events reaching 11,000 community members and hosted 3 neighborhood services ‘Virtual Resource Fairs’. Included in Human and Neighborhood Services are assisting seniors who were greatly affected by CV-19. The Downtown Anaheim Community Center served 16,808 seniors and distributed 115,566 meals. The Brookhurst Community Center served 11,367 seniors and distributed 73,304 meals while the East Anaheim Community Center served 3,440 seniors and distributed 23,498 meals. City staff made 300 daily calls and delivered meals to seniors as well as provided over 94,390 Wellness Check phone calls. Not only were seniors assisted; 15,600 weekly food bags for 60,400 residents were provided though the Anaheim Food Pantry Program and Kids’ Meals were distributed daily to youth 18 and under. Bracken’s Kitchen provided family meals to 260 needy families each week.
Community Services hosted Neighborhood Vaccination Clinics for approximately 3,500 community members, provided vaccines to 1,004 seniors at the Downtown Community Center and East Anaheim Gym and assisted Seniors with registration for vaccine appointments.
Priorities for the 2021-2022 year are… reopening places! Community Centers, Youth and Senior Centers, Family Resource Centers, parks, Pearson Park Amphitheatre, libraries, nature centers, sports programs, are looking to resume operations. Also opening back up are district community and neighborhood meetings, resource fairs and special events, park amenities and athletic fields.
It is truly glorious to witness the world “opening up” again.
Future programs and locations opening are the St. Jude Health Clinic, River Park, and OC River Walk which will provide much more to our city’s resources, not only to our own community, but for tourist services.
Any questions regarding these programs and or improvements should be directed to Sjany Larson-Cash at SLarson@anaeim.net.
Thank you, Sjany for sharing with our club!
For more information on City of Anaheim Community Services, please refer to the City of Anaheim website.
Call the Confidential Hotline 714-480-6580 to report a Hate Crime or Incident
The Child Abuse Prevention Hotline is 800-207-4464 and locally 714-940-1000
