What you felt tonight doesn't have to end here.
stay part of the story.
“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.”
The Power of Proximity
Mae Elise Cannon
Mae Elise Cannon writes from decades inside the evangelical justice movement and her argument is disarmingly simple: proximity is not optional. You cannot advocate for a community from your living room. She walks through the biblical case for nearness, that God's own model of love was incarnational, not remote. And then invites us to trade positions of comfort for positions of relationship. For Unidos, that's the whole invitation. This book gives you the framework for what comes next: how to stand near a neighborhood without standing over it.
Give
John Perkins, the father of Christian Community Development, spent his life arguing that real change happens through relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. You rebuild trust across the lines that divide us and you share what you have as if it were never only yours. Giving isn't charity from a distance. It's redistribution up close.
Nouwen pushed this further: he insisted fundraising was never about scarcity, it was an invitation into a vision. Not "they need, so you should give," but "here is something beautiful happening, come be part of it." That's the spirit we want this ask to carry.
This is what "being with" looks like at Unidos: a homework club table full of kids, a staff member walking a resident through what felt like an impossible obstacle, a place to rest, a seat at the table.
volunteer
Service given without relationship can quietly cost people their dignity. Service built on relationship restores it. The task can look the same from the outside, showing up, giving time, but the posture underneath it is everything.
There's already a place at the table for you. Residents lead here. Youth help shape their own programs, adults tell us what they need. You don't need a plan. Come sit at the table, learn a name. That's how it starts.
Pray
There is a kind of nearness that doesn't require your body to be present, only your attention, held faithfully, week after week, for people you may never meet. That is what prayer is here: not a last resort when action runs out, but its own act of solidarity, the refusal to let a neighborhood's burdens go unnoticed simply because they aren't yours to carry by blood or geography.
Every Tuesday, we bring the residents of Capistrano Villas before God, by name, by need, by hope. Housing burdens. Changing hearts. Working conditions. A community still becoming what it's meant to be.
Text PRAY to 949-365-4636.
Join us in carrying what isn't meant to be carried alone.
“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you prosper.”
Learn
Just Mercy
Bryan Stevenson
Stevenson's own grandmother told him he couldn't understand injustice from a distance. He had to get close. The book follows what happened when he did. A story about a broken system and the people it failed and about what it costs to stand next to them instead of judging from a distance. Capistrano Villas has felt overlooked and over-judged. Stevenson's insistence that a person is more than the worst thing that ever happened to them is not a metaphor here. It is the neighborhood's story too.
“You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance.
You have to get close.”
Learning builds the imagination and the framework we need before we show up. Someone who reads Just Mercy or The Power of Proximity understands why Capistrano Villas needs a neighbor, not a rescuer, before they ever set foot here. That's why we're inviting you to read before you show up.
Technology Integration
Discovery
We conduct rigorous evaluations that illuminate inefficiencies and establish a definitive baseline for improvement.
Implementation
Proactive identification and mitigation safeguard assets and uphold regulatory compliance.
Optimization
We cultivate expertise through structured training and mentorship that empower teams to drive sustained progress.