Our Story
Forty years in one neighborhood.
It started with a few college students who believed East Palo Alto's young people deserved someone in their corner. Four decades later, that is still the whole idea. Here is how we got here.
1984 to today
Four decades, one milestone at a time.
Stanford InterVarsity students, studying the prophet Amos and stirred by a leadership workshop with civil-rights leader Dr. John Perkins, commit to serving East Palo Alto's children. Thirteen college students and recent graduates from Stanford and Santa Clara launch seven neighborhood Bible clubs.
Bayshore Christian Ministries incorporates as a nonprofit. The first three staff, Andrew Hartwell, Norm Picker, and Tony Looper, set out to raise a first budget of $40,000. High School Fellowship, summer learning, and scholarship help for local students begin.
The programs grow fast: tutoring paired with dinner and fellowship, mission trips to serve the homeless in Los Angeles, and EPA Voices Today, a community newspaper published by students.
The ministry moves into its own home, a newly built facility at 1001 Beech Street, and runs its first programs in the building. Volunteers, interns, and alumni step into leadership.
We launch EPA Fellows, a leadership program for recent college graduates. The EPA Chica Squad competes in the Technovation Challenge, places in the top 20, earns honorable mention, and is featured in Google's Made With Code.
Our first high school First Robotics Competition team takes the field. Through the disruption of the pandemic, the programs keep going, and the Field of Hope, a renovated community field, is completed and opens in October 2021.
Bayshore Christian Ministries becomes Hope Horizon East Palo Alto. The new name and logo are an open door to hope and a future, and a promise to keep showing up for this community.
"But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream."Amos 5:24, the verse our founders started with
Today
Still an open door, still in East Palo Alto.
Forty years on, we run afterschool tutoring, the competition robotics team in East Palo Alto, summer camp, mentorship, and college scholarships. The names have changed. The promise has not.
The next chapter is yours.
Forty years happened because people showed up, year after year. You can be one of them.