Overview: Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson hosted his annual Community BBQ and Backpack Giveaway at Celebration Park, providing over 600 meals and 750 backpacks to local families. Organized alongside Sigma Beta Xi Youth & Family Services, the event featured live music, carnival games, and various community resources. Major partners included Inland Empire Health Plan and Riverside County Supervisor Yxstian Gutierrez, while approximately 75% of the volunteers were young people.
Aryana Noroozi
Families gathered at Celebration Park for Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson’s annual Community BBQ and Backpack Giveaway, a daylong event offering more than 600 free meals and 750 backpacks for children, live music, carnival games, and community resources.
Partnering with Jackson’s office, Sigma Beta Xi Youth & Family Services (SBX)—the Inland Empire nonprofit Jackson led as CEO before his election to the 60th Assembly District—helps organize the event each year, coordinating sponsorships and vendors alongside the assembly member’s office.
“We help him gather sponsorships and vendors, and then we put together an event where it feels more like a community barbecue rather than like, ‘oh, here’s something that you need,'” said SBX’s Co-CEO Bernice Zuniga. “It’s a place of gathering… the whole idea of it takes a village. That’s really what the emphasis is.”
Major partners this year included Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) and Riverside County Supervisor Yxstian Gutierrez, whose District 5 office has backed several of Jackson’s community initiatives, including this event in past years.
For Zuniga, one of the greatest standouts of the event was who showed up to serve. “It’s the youth coming out here to serve,” they said. “Not only is it alumni from our organization, but our younger generations that are starting new chapters – they’re all the ones that are serving.” Roughly 75% of those staffing the event were young people, she explained.
