Advocacy Group

WASHINGTON - The nonprofit advocacy group that inherited President Obama's grass-roots campaign infrastructure faces the first real test of its political might Friday, when it holds a series of volunteer-driven events in support of the president's gun violence reduction plan. With the so-called Day of Action, its first national mobilization since launching in January, Organizing for Action is adopting a tactic from Obama's reelection bid, which used such events to engage its 2.2 million volunteers.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Wednesday cemented his relationship with a new advocacy group set up to back his second-term agenda, underscoring the unprecedented role the nonprofit is playing as an outside arm of the White House. In his first speech to Organizing for Action since its January launch, Obama urged former campaign donors, staff and volunteers to channel their resources and energy into the new entity. "The only idea here that we're promoting is the notion that if the American people are speaking out, organized, activated, that may give space here in Washington to do the kind of work - hopefully bipartisan work - that's required," Obama said at the group's two-day "founders summit.

The Oxnard-based Latino advocacy group El Concilio is looking for volunteers to help local residents fill out citizenship application forms on Saturday mornings. No knowledge of Spanish is necessary, said Anita Rodriguez of the citizenship workshop, "just some clerical ability to help people fill out applications." El Concilio runs free weekend citizenship workshops at locations in Ventura County throughout the year.

OUR Walmart, an advocacy group made up of Wal-Mart employees, has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the world's largest retailer of illegally making threats to stop its workers from protesting on Black Friday. The complaint centers around comments from Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar, who said Monday on the "CBS Evening News" that "there could be consequences" for workers who skip out on scheduled shifts on the day after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

WASHINGTON - The nonprofit advocacy group that was formed to back President Obama's agenda, which was sharply criticized as a potential conduit for wealthy interests to influence the White House, has been financed overwhelmingly by thousands of small donors since its launch in late January. Organizing for Action took in just three six-figure donations through the end of March. The biggest, $250,000, came from a son of Warren Buffett's longtime business partner. Only about two dozen of the 770 fundraisers who collected major donations for Obama's reelection gave to the organization, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.

An Oxnard-based Latino advocacy group has received a $65,000 grant to help fund citizenship workshops and study the needs of Ventura County residents in anticipation of sweeping welfare reform initiatives. The Woodland Hills-based California Endowment awarded the money earlier this month to El Concilio del Condado de Ventura. The California Endowment, established in 1966, is a private foundation dedicated to improving access to affordable, quality health care.

Tending to children Re "S. Korean pastor's unwanted flock," June 20 Once again your publication reminds me why I have read and will continue to subscribe to The Times as long as it continues its existence. I know from personal experience that almost no one cares about disabled kids such as these besides their parents. In the cases described in your article, even their parents don't want them — and the South Korean government is protesting? What it should be doing is giving this beautiful individual all the support and funding he requires to improve his facility.

If you lived downwind from a manufacturing plant that could release a cloud of highly toxic chemicals into the air, would you know about it? Probably not, because recent federal legislation effectively restricts the public from learning about potential chemical disasters, according to an advocacy group. But you can find out from the Right-to-Know advocacy group, which has made the Environmental Protection Agency's worst-case scenario reports available on its Web site, RTK Net (http://www.rtk.

Bondage Busters, a homeless advocacy group which was itself homeless for the last three months, has acquired property to house the program, which offers counseling, vocational training and transitional housing. The nonprofit group operated out of the Crenshaw Chamber of Commerce office until November, when the Rev.