Facebook CPO Chris Cox and his wife, filmmaker Visra Vichit-Vadakan, have donated $1million to Live in Peace, an East Palo Alto nonprofit that provides academic, music and technology training to inner city youth.
"Live in Peace is just awesome," Cox wrote in a Facebook post explaining their donation. "They operate with a very organic model of connecting young people to their talents, to jobs, and to a bright picture of their future through a support system of leaders from their own community, with an emerging focus on creating networks between East Palo Alto youth and the universities, entrepreneurs, and tech companies that surround them. We can’t think of a more important mission or a more capable group to lead it."
Live in Peace hosts three separate programs for kids: L.I.P. Studio, which offers instruction in music production; The College Initiative, which concerns mentorship for traditional academic pursuits; and Streetcode Academy, a community-based "hacker school" that teaches coding.
Cox has been intimately aware of Live in Peace because he plays in a reggae band with one of its founders, Justin Phipps, according to Tech Crunch.
