About Us

We are Pray Charity, We bring joy to poor children !

CEI was founded in 2011 by Wilhelmenia Wilson.  As president of the NAACP Branch in the City of El Cerrito, CA, she and Branch members were called to advocate for children and families negatively impacted by racial and social disparities. In the discovery phase, Wilson engaged administrators, teachers and families in the West Contra Costa County Unified School District.  As she spoke out about her perceptions in the community meetings, she was called upon by then Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Bruce Harter, to conduct a community discovery through a series of focus groups.  Through the process, Wilson was impressed by the depth and breadth of the struggles created by the siloed system, the gaps and blind spots that existed amongst and between stakeholders and the missed opportunities to learn from and evolve through the learning.  Wilson envisioned an organization that would work across the siloes and divides cultivating human capital around shared objectives and harvesting it to nourish the common goals shared by all.

An multi disciplinary Board of Directors, including education, psychology, public health, clergy, technology, science, criminal justice, social advocacy, business and government professionals were recruited.  They thoughtfully wrestled at the boundary of the outlined challenges, community input and their perspectives to unite an envisioned future.  The decision to operate as a collective impact organization; providing support to organizations with the objective of creating a web, strategically designed infrastructure, of community based support, was the outcome.  To ground their work, CEI developed their first partnership with the educational non-profit Full Circle Learning http://www.fullcirclelearning.org

In 2013, CEI hosted its first Collective Impact Partner Conference in partnership with Contra Costa Community College sponsored by the Department of Childhood Education under a grant from Kinship Care. Members from 20 + community organizations attended the day long event comprised of workshops on public health, early childhood education, (reference brochure for other detail) The feedback from that forum solidified the organizations focus on education, health and social equity and the concept for the Village Cultural Academy was born.

The summer of 2013, CEI piloted the Village Cultural Academy in partnership with St. Peter Christian Methodist Church in El Cerrito, CA.