About Breathe California
The last half of our first century has been spent fighting ALL lung disease and its causes---tobacco use and air pollution.
In the 1970s and 1980s we advocated heavily for air quality protections and were responsible for improving highway plans and introducing smog checks locally. We also began a number of patient education and support services which continue to this day: Parents of Asthmatic Children support groups; Camp Superstuff asthma camp; Better Breathers Club support group for chronic lung disease patients; and Breathing Improvement Classes for pulmonary rehabilitation. In the 1980s we were the first to offer smoking cessation classes in the workplace and at schools, and conducted special cessation programs for pregnant women. And we developed a peer mentor program in conjunction with Stanford University under an NIH grant that became a nationwide model for tobacco prevention: CLASP Counseling Leadership Against Smoking Pressures.
We were the first organization in the US to push for multiple ordinances to protect “nonsmokers rights,” winning the first such ordinances in Los Altos and Santa Clara County in the 1970s, and we continued city by city promoting multiple “rounds” of increasingly stringent ordinances. We have now turned to seeking protection from outdoor smoking, such as the landmark San Jose parks ordinance, and multi-unit housing protection such as the landmark Santa Clara County ordinance. In 1988 we turned in more voluntary signatures than any other local agency for Proposition 99, and we continue to support initiatives to raise tobacco taxes, license tobacco, and prevent youth access.
In the 1990s we added new programs in multiple areas: EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools inspections/remediation of respiratory hazards in schools, asthma management classes in schools, Quit the Hits cessation program for highest-risk students, Project Unity anti-tobacco program for African Americans, Mind the Gap College Advocacy program, Drive-through Flu Clinics, and Smokeless Saturday School for minors cited for tobacco possession and their parents.
This last decade has brought Seniors Breathe Easy services, home inspections, provision of sleep apnea equipment, Youth for a Cool Earth environmental program, Community Connections tobacco control program for priority populations, the coordination of the Silicon Valley Clean Cities Coalition for promotion of alternatively fueled vehicles, …and the founding of the Tuberculosis Prevention Partnership…coming full circle from our beginning.
Over the decades it has become more and more clear that we accomplish the greatest good, the most efficiently, at the least cost, when we work in partnership with other organizations. Although we are highly visible in our community, delivering our own direct services, we have evolved into a highly collaborative agency that frequently provides the training and technical assistance for others who deliver direct services to reach our target populations.