The California Voices initiative is a service learning participatory media program that trains young people to express their public voice and preserve their communities legacy.

During after-school hours instructors guide students to produce digital stories using the California Voices curriculum. Through the Intergenerational Digital Storytelling component, young people are matched with elder role models as they work together in teams to create videos highlighting local history as told through the personal stories of unsung heroes. The Youth Voice component challenges students to identify community and school wide issues that are of concern and to engage in dialogue with peers and administrators to devise solutions. At the conclusion of the school year, student teams have several well-crafted videos to present to their school and community that are archived on CaliforniaVoices.org. Students will have developed 21st Century job and leadership skills that will attribute to their personal life goals.

California Voices is currently in operation at over 25 community centers and middle and high schools in the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Metropolitan Region.

CMC staff will hire, train and supervise a qualified instructor to facilitate an after-school program for an additional fee. Instructor trainings are conducted three times a year beginning October through June. At the end of the school year, young people are recruited from the after-school program to participate in CMC's "Summer of Service" operating at community centers in their neighborhoods.

CMC creates partnerships with schools and community centers that serve high poverty areas, typically in urban and rural settings where young people have historically been excluded from access to participatory media opportunities. The California Voices after-school program is supported in areas that have qualified for 21st Century After-School grants, ASES funding, and other state and federal programs focused on under-performing and poverty-stricken schools. Partnerships with city departments and school districts bring summer programs to community centers in urban settings defined by their concentration of poverty.

CMC will expand California Voices to additional regions of the state, continuing to focus on young people in communities that lack access to participatory media opportunities, bringing them into the fray of this new medium in a way that empowers them to share their ideas and perspectives with each other and the greater public.