Community and Reginald Jones Thank You
Dear Community,
We are grateful to you for your continued partnership this year and for the past 27 years. Together with neighbors, local businesses, community organizations, corporate partners, donors, staff and volunteers, we have continued to build communities and lift lives. It’s your support that makes transformation possible.
This year, we want to send a special note of thanks to our outgoing President and CEO Reginald Jones. Reginald has been the voice and face of the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation for 10 years, leading millions of dollars in development, including the area’s only pharmacy, cleaning up and creating Chollas Creek Park, facilitating the Promise Zone designation to support market rate and affordable housing, negotiating the sale of Jacobs Center property to the County of San Diego as part of the Live Well Center, selling the Bryco building to Rise Up, an organization that helps formerly incarcerated individuals successfully reenter the workforce, and building numerous community partnerships, such as the business accelerator focused on diverse and low-to-moderate income entrepreneurs.
Thank you, Reginald, for your leadership, impact and passion to help us improve and empower the Southeast San Diego community.
Selena Ellis-Vizcarra, former director of operations, has stepped into a leadership role as senior vice president of operations. Board Chair Claire Hapke and board member Valerie Jacobs Hapke will also serve as board support during this transition.
2022 was a historic year for Jacobs Center, with more community board members leading the organization than Jacobs family members, working toward the goal of becoming a nonprofit fully run by community members. We are thankful for all the work that has been done and the work to come to provide Southeast San Diego with the partnerships, infrastructure and programs to benefit generations to come, by and for the community.
We wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.
In gratitude,
Claire Hapke, Board Chair
and the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation Board of Directors:
- Louie Nguyen
- Juan Carlos Hernandez
- Paul Robinson
- Andrew M. Hapke
- Norman F. Hapke, Jr.
- Valerie Jacobs Hapke
- Lonnie Lucas
- Alberto “Beto” Vasquez