Our Mission
Project Opportunity is committed to providing charitable assistance to the disadvantaged minority youth in the city of Hawthorne, California. The assistance we provide is tailor-made for our city’s youth. We strive to provide non-traditional financial assistance and unique, diverse opportunities for learning, from both a personal, educational, career, and community perspective where none previously existed.
“If the opportunity doesn’t exist, create it.”
-Brett Blumenthal
Founders
Lameka Bell
Lameka Bell is a 25-year veteran of the Hawthorne Police Department and is currently assigned to our Community Affairs Unit. PSO Bell is also the first civilian K-9 handler with our police department. Bell’s partner is officer Scottie. Scottie is one of four Facility Service dogs assigned to a Police Department. You can always find Bell and Scottie at any City of Hawthorne Community event, at schools with Gabby the talking police car, assisting with victims of crime, Churches, Senior centers, hospitals, or helping out at the station.
PSO Bell has worked in our Traffic Bureau, Detective Bureau, and Jail. PSO Bell helps organize and run the Coffee with a Cop program, The Apartment building owners seminar, and the Hawthorne Force Youth hockey team. She also is an advocate for Sexual Assault Victims, partners with Courthouse Dog Foundation, and a mediator with Centinela Youth Services.
She is the co-founder of Project Opportunity and personally runs the Power Project, a program that "provide girls from underserved communities between the ages of 9 to 11, the opportunity to grow using mentorship to build self esteem, positive life imagery, with the belief system that they CAN accomplish any goal they set and work hard to achieve."
Chris Cognac
Chris Cognac is a retired Sergeant with the Hawthorne Police Department in Los Angeles County California. He is a co-founder of Project Opportunity and the co-creator of the nationally recognized Coffee with a Cop community policing program and works closely with police around the world to create better police-community relationships. A former Fellow with the Office of Community Policing in Washington DC, He believes in paying it forward, the power of positive thinking and that one Cop can change the world. He was also the host of the Hungry Detective on the Food Network
