History Grail Family Services (GFS) has been in East San José since the 1960s, when our founding organization, The Grail, initiated several community development programs, including low cost housing. Over the years we have changed our focus to meeting the needs of the community in other ways – through high-quality programming and family resources. We began this new direction by conducting a community needs assessment. We learned that, at the time, there were no services for families with young children, despite an overwhelming need, and the fact that 70% of children in the Alum Rock Union School District (ARUSD) were not reading at grade level. These findings informed our strategic direction, and since then we have focused on providing programming and services for families with children 0-8 years, in the areas of literacy, oral language and cognitive development, and family engagement.