“WE HAVE PAIN BECAUSE WE HAVE LOVE ”

For 55 years I have had the great joy and good fortune to work with community action agencies across the country. 

I’ve created some of them, run some, and served on the boards of directors of others.  

Although my eye is not unerring, I have a pretty keen sense of what makes such locally-based agencies tick, the average ones mark time, and the good ones really tick.

Rebekah Spicuglia runs “One Community Action” in Santa Maria, California, a somewhat new, local non-profit whose tick and resonant bell will be, I believe deeply, heard by, influence, and inspire many. Their hands-on work, is tough, unrelenting, and persistent, their policy focus is clear, their voices loud and insistent:  

One Community Action (OCA) envisions a vibrant community safe for all, a community made safe through youth development, community building and public advocacy.  Under this lies a passion to connect the disaffected and disconnected to youth workers, to  family and to participation in the larger community. “We are a sentinel and advocate,” says Spicuglia. One Community Action does the hard, gritty work while keeping a keen eye on structures and policies that weaken families and undermine struggling communities –policies that would overlook the dejected and rejected. 

One Community Action’s  Mission and Vision statements capture its purpose and work: 

Mission: One Community Action OCA) is a sentinel and advocate working for culturally competent solutions that ensure the future and vibrancy of the Santa Maria Valley community.  Rooted in the concept of “Por Vida –For Life,” OCA confronts the systemic inequities and violence that must be transformed for a safe and inclusive community through:

• Community Building
• Youth Development
• Advocacy

Vision: OCA envisions a vibrant community, safe from violence, committed to our youth and each other, with culturally competent institutions supporting equity and access for all.

Under One Community’s mission and vision statements, outcome measures and all it takes to run a relatively new community-based nonprofit entity serving a tough population lies the relentless, agency-animating pulse of  Rebekah, a grieving mother who lost a son to violence. “Grief has never left me and it never will,” she says. “When giving my victim impact statement at the murder trial, I sang a song I wrote for him when he was a child. He was there with me then. And he’s with me in my work today.”

“Jack,” she continues, “when you shared with me the other day on our phone call that “pain should not be wasted,” I gasped.  That is my mission –so  other mothers will not lose their Oscars as I lost mine.”  

When I, as a father and grandfather, suggested that loss of a child would be the worst horror I could imagine, she gently disagreed.  “Jack, grief is grief.  If I claim my grief is the worst, somehow special, different, I undervalue and under-appreciate the agony others feel. I then isolate myself from them.  We need everyone who grieves or who face potential grief to work together. Grief must take me forward and with others. One Community Action is not just my response to violence, but a community response to violence.” 

Rebekah moved from New York to Santa Maria in Southern California, her son’s death spurring a new vision and lifetime commitment.  Appointed to serve on One Community’s board of directors in October 2020, she was asked in early 2021 to serve as its executive director.  

We reflected together how finely-honed our tools are for identifying youth problems, and, by comparison, how blunt are our tools are for finding and eliciting strength, harnessing youth energy to serve as community assets, not liabilities. Based on youth forums and community meetings, much of OCA’s program and policy thrusts are derived from these extensive “conversations.” Rebekah noted proudly that OCA’s “March to End Gun Violence” was co-led by youth. 

Working closely with the school system in four of Santa Maria’s high schools, One Community Action has reset its goals for work with youth who are in need of culturally responsive services, who are struggling academically, many dealing with mental health issues, substance use, racism and generational trauma. “We support students on their path to graduation, while also celebrating achievement beyond grades and attendance.”  One Community Action bases much of its direct service work with youth on a “Joven Noble” curriculum, with indigenous teachings, rites of passage and four principles to which they ask the youth to subscribe:  Keep your word. Do not harm yourself or others. Take responsibility for your actions. Set a positive example. 

With full bore, wraparound support, which includes intensive work with families, “100% of One Community Action’s seniors graduated last year,” reports Rebekah proudly.  One Community Action also has plans underway for a reentry navigator program to work with youth on Probation exiting from Youth Authority detention centers. 

Time was beginning to close in on us, but I was able to get in one final question: “What sustains you? “  Taking a deep breath, Rebekah paused, and then slowly,  almost reverently replied, “I am grateful.  I am supported by so many, and I have learned to embrace joy.  I get to walk out of doors with my son’s memory every day carrying me, spurring me.” “Gratitude after such a loss?” I ask. “Yes, I am grateful. I could have rested or retreated and grieved, but One Community Action gave me strength, a dream job where I could work on structural racism, on connecting kids to school, family, and community…to hope, and that with Oscar’s memory, others might live.

You see, Jack, we have pain because we have love.  If you honor your pain, you can go forward with love and healing.”