EPIC Leadership Center purposes to develop everyday leaders in two higher risk and low-income neighborhoods of Ventura, California. Everyday leaders see a problem and seek to address it with moral and ethical behavior. Students and their parents who live in EPIC neighborhoods need and welcome EPIC’s training because of the relationships our leaders develop with them.In 2009 a core group of leaders began working in Cabrillo Village, a farm labor neighborhood in the Saticoy area of our city. This community is home to 165 Mexican families. On December 14, 2012 we formed a Non-Profit Corporation. In 2019, we added the Westview Village neighborhood in the Ventura Avenue area. This neighborhood was built and is under the jurisdiction of the City of San Buenaventura Housing Authority. EPIC began its work there initially with 165 families. New homes will be added in July 2022, and the total families EPIC will serve then will be 286 units. These two neighborhoods are quite different, yet they share some of the same characteristics: single-language Spanish speaking parents, generational poverty, broken families, low academic performance, substance abuse, gang presence, and little exposure to the greater Ventura community. Although many people label these neighborhoods “tough”, EPIC has experienced that the parents and their children who navigate these characteristics are resilient and open to grow. read more... read less