Watsonville Community School has been serving the Pajaro Valley community for 15 years. The purpose of the school is to provide students with an alternative learning setting where they can successfully continue their education while being a contributing member of the community. The curriculum emphases is on basic skills combined with flexibility and a wide range of creative strategies. The environment is carefully planned and organized by the staff with the support of local school districts, the probation department, and a collaboration of social services and counselors.

   The Y teen programs operate within the institutional commitment to building strong communities by building strong families and strong children. All YMCA programs focus on teaching the core values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Program goals focus on developing youth self-confidence, support and strengthen the family unit, improve youths' ability to work within a group, and providing safe, affordable, and high quality care.

   The Museum operates an Educational Department that works in two core programs with youth. The Art Ambassadors program is a museum internship experience wherein about 7-10 students from the Monterey High School Art Academy work to develop and curate an exhibit of their choosing while learning about the museum services. The Education department also serves the county schools by hosting visits to the Museum and by outreach through a program called Museum on Wheels (a travelling caravan of exhibits). The Museum also sponsors an annual Youth Arts Festival exhibiting children's art from around the county.

  The Boys and Girls clubs of Monterey County's mission is to inspire and enable the youth residing in Monterey County to realize their full potential to become productive, responsible, and successful citizens.  Core program areas include recreation, sports and fitness, education and career development, the arts, character and leadership development, health and life skills.

   Organized by local arts educator and muralist, Jose Ortiz, the painter's workshops of Hijos del Sol offer studio space to artists who want to acquire discipline in an aesthetic environment. As creators, our main objective is to stimulate the visual and intellectual expression as a tool to develop inner capabilities relative to our culture and identity to achieve a growth that will lead us to unite without boundaries.

   Through a core set of eight programs, this organization's objectives include: to develop youth leadership, connect to youth on the street, to develop healthy families and neighborhoods, to provide alternatives to youth involved in violence, to provide youth job training, to provide in-school gang and violence counseling, and to provide free tattoo removal to reformed gang members. Strategies for achieving these goals rely on early intervention and support helping youth see alternatives to violence and drug dependent lifestyles.