• Tony Blair addresses the Santa Barbara Community
  • Engaged Preschool Teaching
  • CPR during a Masters of Disaster Lesson
  • School Food
  • Orfalea Early Childhood Director's Retreat
  • Jr. Chef Day
  • Kids Cook
  • Orfalea Outdoor Classroom Project
  • Local Harvest
  • Culinary Boot Camp
  • Paul speaks with President Bill Clinton
  • James Lee Witt speaks to Santa Barbara County
  • Learning Outdoors
  • Orfalea Early Childhood Directors Retreat
  • Main School Family Resource Center- Carpinteria, CA
  • Montana Yellowstone Expeditions
  • MYE Students hiking in Montana
  • Assemblyman Pedro Nava attends Preparedness Event
  • MYE Students at the Beach
  • Santa Barbara County Emergency Operations Center
  • Our Local Agriculture
  • Students eat food that they made
  • A Jr. Chef peels her tomato
  • A Jr. Chef peels his carrot
  • Playtime at local Family Resource Center
  • Playtime at local Family Resource Center
  • MYS Students visit the farm
  • Children at the farm
  • The Orfalea Family and Mr. Tony Blair
  • Getting creative outdoors
  • Junior Chefs checking out their final outcome
  • MYE Student having a good time
  • Student admiring local produce

Orfalea Family Foundation

Paul Orfalea and President Clinton discuss impacts of globalization.Established in 2000, the Orfalea Family Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation that serves and reflects the personal choices of the Orfalea family.

The Orfalea family supports high quality, preventative and experiential community programs which directly impact children, youth and underprivileged families.

Within the Orfalea Family Foundation’s focus area are:

  • Montana Yellowstone Expeditions is an experiential education program for motivated youth aged 15-18 from southern California, south west Montana and other select locations in the US. For more information, please click here.
  • The Children's Center Director's Retreat To support quality care for children in early care centers withing the Orfalea Family Foundation's network, the Foundation created and implemented an annual three day conference for center directors and teachers. In 2009, the Orfalea Children's Center Director's Retreat included 180 attendees from over 80 different centers and organizations. First rate training, networking and best practice sharing are hallmarks of this popular event. For more information, please click here.
  • Universities of Higher Education The Orfalea Family Foundation has developed and maintains strong relationships with universities throughout California including Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, University of Southern California and University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to offering scholarships at these Universities, Paul Orfalea is also a current lecturer of undergraduate courses. For information about scholarships, please click here.
  • International Connections In the past, the Orfalea Family Foundation has been involved in granting internationally at the discretion of the Orfalea Family. While these projects are not within either Foundation’s typical granting parameters, they serve to connect us with the national and international philanthropic communities which in turn gives us perspective on local issues and helps us ensure that Santa Barbara County is a member of the global community enhancing our perspective as global citizens.
  • Our Relationship with the Clinton Global Initiative: The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is a non-partisan initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation which sets out to turn ideas into action. With the aim to foster a shared responsibility to address major global problems, the Orfalea Foundations have made Commitments to Action in previous years to address the world needs of the issues they are passionate about, which are also the priority theme areas of the Orfalea Foundations: Education, Early Care, Youth Development and Critical Community Needs. The Clinton Global Initiative and the Orfalea Foundations work together to provide the furthest reach in their respective programs.