A Palo Alto-based nonprofit organization has received a $370,000 W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant to help low-income families and communities build self esteem and common understanding.

The Center for Sustainable Change (CSC) received the grant to help some of the country's most impoverished communities in Des Moines, Iowa, Charlotte, N.C., and the Mississippi Delta, through its National Community Resiliency Project, the organization announced.

The organization teaches people to transform depression and despair into understanding how people create their own emotional realities -- how people can share good mental health and are connected to something greater than their own personal thoughts.

The CSC model has been used in Santa Clara County's Health and Hospitals System, with indigenous populations in Canada and the United States and with inner-city communities in San Francisco and Oakland. It is designed to decrease violence, crime, homicides, delinquency and depression and to increase employment, according to the announcement.

The Kellogg Foundation, founded by cereal baron Will Keith Kellogg, works to establish racial equality and opportunity for all children. The foundation distributes more than $272.5 million in grants annually from an $8 billion fund.

The Center for Sustainable Change will hold a fundraising workshop, "Protecting & Enhancing Family Well-Being During Difficult Times," on Sunday, April 19. The event is co-sponsored by the Four Seasons Hotel, East Palo Alto. Cost is $185 (or $165 pre-registration by April 15). For information, call 650-424-0705.