About Us

History

Covina Valley Community Support was founded in 1967 and started with two philanthropic projects: Shopping A La Cart and Girls Club. The first fundraiser was a Christmas Tree Brunch held at South Hills Country Club. 100 tickets were sold and there were three decorated trees that were delivered in a horse trailer. "needless to say that was the beginning of a very successful event!" Today, we consistently host around 1000 guests at the beautiful Disneyland Hotel.

In 1970 we were chartered as Assistance League®  of East San Gabriel Valley. That year the two early programs were replaced with the Learning Center tutoring program and our Thrift Shop was opened in a small house on Badillo Street, just west of Azusa Avenue.

Eventually a wonderful Spanish house with a building that was a florist shop was purchased as a permanent home. The second floor housed the Learning Center and the meetings were held on the main floor. The florist shop became the Thrift Shop.

In 1984 a program was added to dress children and the organization purchased a used car lot and 1950s duplex next door to house the Operation School
Bell®  program.

The first golf tournament was held in 1996 and in 2000 our name became Assistance League®  of Covina Valley to reflect the communities we serve. In addition a new program, Assault Survivor Kit®  was adopted to provide clothing and personal items to adults and children through a partnership with Project Sister in Pomona.

As the organization continued to grow, we were again in need of more space and a new facility replaced the 1950s duplex. Additional community needs were identified in 2009 and another new program, Community Services, was adopted. This program partnered with several local service agencies and school districts to provide good quality used clothing and household items to those in crises. A single car garage was replaced with a 2 story storage facility.

Then in 2018, we adopted a new program "Hug in a Box" which provides much needed personal articles for homeless, homeless veterans, and foster children in our community. With our Thrift Shop not only  providing neighborhood shopping and serving clients through our Community Services program, we again made a significant investment in our facilities and refurbished the space. We celebrated this wonderful improvement in June 2018 with a grand re-opening ribbon cutting ceremony, which was attended by City, County, and Chamber officials as well as many from our organization and community.
in 2023, our chapter received a grant from the Ludwick Family Foundation to purchase a new electric van to support our programs.

2026 brought another name change to our organization--Covina Valley Community Support. Operation School Bell®  was also renamed to Project Student Support and the Assault Survivor Kit®  program was incorporated into Hug in a Box.

Our organization consists of more than 150 members including our teen group, Community Crew.. Our members volunteer in excess of 20,000 hours annually to our various philanthropies.