Temecula, CA — The CIELO Fund marked its third anniversary Saturday with a packed brunch program at the InlandEmpire Community Foundation (IECF) in Temecula, spotlighting its expanding impact through grants, scholarships, media partnerships and immigrant justice advocacy.
The annual gathering drew more than 300 attendees including community leaders, elected officials, journalists, nonprofit organizations and students.
Speakers celebrated the fund’s rapid growth since its 2022 launch, while asking attendees to continue investing in Inland Empire Latiné communities.
CIELO, short for Cultivating Inland Empire Latino Opportunity, was created to strengthen Latiné-led and Latiné-serving organizations across Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
In just three years, the fund has distributed more than $1.4 million across nearly 100 grants, launched rapid responseefforts for immigrant rights, funded original research with UCLA and built a scholarship pipeline for local students.
“When we launched in 2022, we did so with a simple belief: that Latino communities in the Inland Empire should nothave to wait for a crisis to be worthy of investment,” said CIELO Fund founder and IECF Board Chair Jesse Melgar, reflecting on his parents’ immigrant journey and his own Inland Empire upbringing. “This moment reaffirms why this fund is so critical.”
The brunch featured updates on three core pillars: grantmaking, narrative change and research.
Melgar highlighted collaborations with media partners including CalMatters, KVCR, LA Times’ De Los, and the Desert Sun, designed to amplify Latino stories that often go untold in mainstream coverage.
“Stories shape the world around us, and narratives open doors or close them,” Melgar said. “That’s why we worked with our media partners to tell the stories of our people, stories that rarely make headlines but that make a difference every day.”
CIELO also released new research with the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, focusing on Latino contributions to the regional economy.
According to the report shared at the event, Latiné people contribute billions annually to local, state and federal economies, underscoring the community’s role as a driver of growth.
The centerpiece of the brunch program was a panel moderated by Fidel Martinez of the Los Angeles Times’ De Los,featuring Luz Gallegos of Todec Legal Center Inc., Angelica Nino of El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center and Javier Hernandez of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.
The conversation focused on the mounting challenges immigrant communities face under current federal policies.
Gallegos emphasized the historical roots of Inland Empire organizing, drawing connections to farmworker boycotts and economic disruption strategies of the past.
“Organizing here in the region has been very difficult, not only because of funding but also because of the lack of mediacoverage,” Gallegos said. “But thanks to CIELO and our partners, that’s changing.”
Gallegos also spoke emotionally about recent mental health crises among local farmworkers, noting that herorganization has documented six suicides among farmworker men in the region.
Nino shared the story of Maria, a community health worker in San Bernardino County who helped a Guatemalan motherovercome fear of ICE raids through Know Your Rights workshops.
The story illustrated the tangible impact of community health workers funded through CIELO.
Hernandez framed the struggle for immigrant rights as a broader fight for democracy, citing recent Supreme Court decisions that have weakened protections.
“The fight for immigrant rights is the fight for democracy itself,” he said. “If we allow protections for immigrants to fall apart, this is just the beginning of what this administration wants.”
The brunch also showcased a CIELO Fund Grantee Spotlight Video, produced with Inland Empire influencer Saul Gomez of the podcast I.E In Friends.
The video highlighted three nonprofits — Casa Blanca Home of Neighborly Service, El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center and a local arts collective — that use CIELO funding to support food security, health education, creativeentrepreneurship and community resilience.
“This is what we talk about when we talk about creative entrepreneurship. People who are makers, people who arecreating products, and this is their platform to sell,” one interviewee said in the video.
Later in the program, Diana Rodriguez, Chancellor of the San Bernardino Community College District, and MarisaValdez Yeager recognized dozens of CIELO Fund scholarship recipients.
More than $300,000 in scholarships has been distributed to students across the Inland Empire, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college.
There was also the announcement of the creation of the CIELO Endowed Fund with an initial
$500,000 investment to secure the fund’s long-term future.
“Today, we take the next step in solidifying the future of this work,” Melgar said. “This work must endure beyond us.”
