Hello, my name is Precious Alfaro, the founder of the developing non-profit, The Crimson Clover Organization. Crimson Clover is focused on empowering young people to help others by donating their art and their time to help feed homeless individuals in our communities, giving them a new way to get involved, whether that is by organizing art events where all proceeds go to our food program or skate events where we go out and feed the homeless. We are a network of mentors who want to influence a culture change within society.
To fully explain this organization, I need to first explain just a little about myself. I was born and raised in Los Angeles California; in a low-income neighborhood, where my friends and I were poor. My parents, like others in my neighborhood, were addicts. My mother was lucky enough to escape addiction while unfortunately, my father was not. This led to him being homeless. For years I turned my back on him until I realized just what I had been doing. For years after that, I spent my mornings and afternoons driving around Los Angeles looking for my homeless father just so that I knew he would eat that day. Somedays I found him and some days I didn’t; those were always the hardest. I developed a sort of sixth sense when it came to my dad, almost as if I knew when he needed me. One 107 degree summer afternoon I had the urge to look for him. I had driven around for about an hour with no luck until I just happened to turn a corner and look down. That’s when I saw a body lying in the middle of the sidewalk baked and burned. I parked my car in the middle of the street and ran towards the man that raised me, the man that taught me to never say “can’t”, now lying lifeless on the ground. There I was running towards what I thought was my dead father, from the other direction a group of young adults stepping over him, never ever once looking down, never once thinking that a homeless person could hold any value to anyone else. That was the moment everything changed for me. It really put my own selfishness in perspective and made me want to help.