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May 2007
Putting Teenage Mothers On the Road to Success
Rosario Rocha and her daughter Megan Benitez.
As Rosario Rocha rolls through the tough West Sacramento neighborhood of Oak Park, it’s as though she is recalling someone else’s childhood world: the drugs and prostitutes, the school yard violence—and, of course, pregnancy in high school.
Today, at twenty-two, Rocha has a vision of the world that ranges far beyond the stifling confines of Oak Park to college, a career, and someday her own house in another part of town. At six, her daughter Megan, as confident a first grader as you’re likely to meet, is as busy as the offspring of any baby boomer: at the moment there are classes in violin, folk dance, and ballet.
In large measure, Rocha credits her transformation to finding a program called Teen Success, a project of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte supported in part by grants from the Hewlett Foundation. The support is part of the Foundation’s larger commitment to making grants to help disadvantaged communities throughout the Bay Area.
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A Place Where Music Matters
A painting of Mayne Smith, founding Chairman of the Board at The Freight & Salvage.
(Image courtesy of Freight & Salvage)
High on the wall of the lobby of the Freight & Salvage Coffee House in Berkeley is an oil painting of a rangy fellow, legs akimbo, intently plucking a banjo. There is, by the look on his face, only the music. The man is Mayne Smith and, as the portrait tribute suggests, he was there from the beginning.
Smith, who in addition to being a fine banjo player was also the founding chairman of the board of “the Freight,” in many ways still exemplifies the spirit of the place.
“There was a sense of community that everyone was interested in fostering,’’ said Smith of those early days. “It was very egalitarian.”
In existence for nearly forty years, the Freight & Salvage Coffee House remains a scene where music matters more than commerce and being true to yourself still is widely thought to be its own reward. This spirit has seen the place grow from its beginnings in a failed used-furniture store (it kept the name) that seated just 87 people to its current 220-seat home at 1111 Addison Street, three blocks away.
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“Foundations”
A Q&A with Laurie Hoagland
Laurance Hoagland, Jr.
“Foundations” is an occasional series of informal question-and-answer sessions with employees of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to let them explain their work. Laurance Hoagland, Jr.—“Laurie” to all who know him—is the chief investment officer of the Hewlett Foundation. Before joining the Foundation in January 2001, he was president and CEO of Stanford Management Company, Stanford University’s now $20 billion investment arm. In addition to his work at the Foundation, he is chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and advisor to the investment committees at the California Institute of Technology, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii, among many other roles.
Under his leadership, the Hewlett Foundation’s investment assets have grown to $8.3 billion. In 2006, his investment team’s return of 20.7 percent was the greatest of the country’s ten largest foundations and made the Hewlett Foundation the nation’s fifth largest private foundation.
He graduated from Stanford University in economics in 1958; received a B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University in 1960; and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1962.
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Also in this issue:
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The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
2121 Sand Hill Road
Menlo Park, CA 94025
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