During each quarter of the year, Sereno Group’s Coastal Offices in Santa Cruz and Aptos choose two recipients to receive a grant from Sereno’s 1% for Good Charitable Foundation. Each agent has the opportunity to donate 1% of their commissions to the 1% for Good Program which means that it is 100% agent funded. Since 2012, Sereno agents across the Bay Area have donated over $2.8 million to over 193 local organizations!

Building for Generations is the second 1% for Good recipient for Sereno’s Coastal office during the 2nd quarter of 2020. This non-profit was created to support education projects worldwide with a focus on people with special needs. Cory Ybarra, its founder, traveled to developing countries and witnessed the discrimination of people with disabilities. Cory sprung into action taking both her first-hand experience, a special needs son of her own and her degree and certifications to create programs to serve an underserved and often forgotten population of people in our world.

Building for Generations offers programs throughout the world including Tanzania, Peru, Colombia, and right here in Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz, a music program called “Building Rhythm” is hosted weekly and includes music without words to include people of varying abilities. In Tanzania, they built a three-classroom block, auditorium, and operate a lunch program. Husna, (pictured) is deaf, has ADD and participates in the skills training program, where they are currently making masks.

Get Involved

If you’d like to get involved and support the efforts of Building for Generations, you can do so in a few ways.

Donate By supporting Building for Generations with monetary contributions, you will support their educational programs and facilities, help provide supplies and equipment, and reach new communities. Recent donations have helped supply families in Tanzania with buckets, food, and soap where a lack of rain the past year created a food shortage, and where a day’s wage ($2) is roughly the same cost of a kg of rice. If you’d like to donate, you can do so here.

Shop Through AmazonSmile Shop through AmazonSmile.com and select Building for Generations as the charity to support. AmazonSmile donates 0.5% of eligible purchases to the organization of your choice. As of February 2020, the AmazonSmile program has given back $169,850,767 to non-profit organizations. Shop now.

Collaborate If you have connections with an area that could benefit from these special needs programs, contact Building for Generations here.

History on the 1% for Good Program