Projects

Yavapai County is the size of New Jersey and of the 35 total communities within it's boundaries, only 8 are incorporated. The remaining 27 non-incorporated communities have limited or no public infrastructure. Each of these incorporated and unincorporated communities have specific and varied needs. Our project takes a wide view of the county's issues and focuses on those that reach and affect every community. Our projects focus on issues of substance abuse, isolation, poverty, homelessness, under engaged Youth, and an overall lack of civic engagement.

The VISTAs within our project do groundbreaking and influential work. They address the most challenging problems head on. Most of our projects have designed three year VISTA project plans. Below are our current projects with links to descriptions. Some of these positions are in the process of recruiting, and currently accepting applications.

Kinship Care: Grandparents & Other Kin Caregivers Raising Children

With a focus on drug-impacted kinship families, this project will identify existing resources for Kinship families, creating a network of programs to support these families. This will in turn identify the gaps in services available, and ways of filling those gaps. By helping the children and their relatives stepping in to raise them, this will prevent continued substance abuse and establish permanency for the children, and ultimately bring Kinship families out of poverty. 

Since November, the kinship program has been able to sign up about 55 families across Yavapai County for the Area Agency on Aging KinCare monies. Allison Andrelchik has set up an information and referral system for kinship families to call and receive help with a variety of issues has been set in place at Arizona's Children Association with two full time staff members available to help families in need. Also, two community forums focused on kinship families have been completed. The information gathered from the forums will be used to guide the creation of new programs in the future.

Read more »

Prescott Area Winter Shelter

Ali Kopinto coordinated the first emergency shelter for homeless/transitional women and children in Prescott, AZ. The Prescott Area Winter Shelter (PAWS) operated from December 2007 - March 2008. Until PAWS, women in Prescott often resorted to camping in the Prescott National Forest, or remaining in unhealthy circumstances. Clients of PAWS were not only given a safe space from 5pm to 7am, but also connected to permanent resources in the area to get them on the path of independence and employment. During the four months, the shelter provided for 46 individuals, 9 of them children; prepared 238 meals, and leveraged 66 volunteers. PAWS would not have been possible without the support of the generous Prescott community, which raised $15,750 in just three months. 

Read more »

Establish and Expand Volunteers and Donors

Substance Abuse Coalition

The overall purpose of the Substance Abuse Coalition is to determine and implement solutions to the substance abuse problems in Yavapai County. To focus the process and to develop implementation steps, a mission statement was established. The mission statement for the Yavapai County Substance Abuse Coalition is:  With integrity and determination we, the citizens of Yavapai County, commit to work in partnership to build healthier communities by eliminating substance abuse and its effects.

The VISTA member will be focusing on the youth population within the county. They will identify current youth commissions and youth groups in order to coordinate MATForce coalition efforts with these active groups. This will result in the establishment of 3 new youth commissions or groups in Yavapai County.  The VISTA member will also play a key role in establishing sustainability for the coalition. They will be researching and writing foundation grants to secure future funding. The VISTA will also help with the numerous events and activities, such as: "Dump the Drugs Day", "March against Meth", "Substance Abuse Awareness Month", and the "Recovery Celebration".

Community Conversations

These two organizations have collaborated to bring a fresh, creative approach to address the needs of residents of Yavapai County. They have sponsored gatherings called Community Conversations to address community-wide challenges and opportunities rather than to hear specific agency or organizational needs. The Community Conversations resulted in a current list of community concerns and opportunities developed directly by participants. Participants were also given the opportunity to develop Action Teams for follow-up activities.

Community Conversations gave the residents, agencies and other interested individuals a chance to gather and discuss the needs of the community. These events also allowed the funders to hear about community needs with participants serving as well-informed focus groups. Listening to the concerns that arose in the Community Conversations allows funders to address the issues that matter most in our community by improving lives and delivering meaningful results.

Partnering with other local agencies, Community Conversations were held throughout the county focusing on three areas:

1. Critical needs: investing in basic food, shelter, safety, medical and emergency needs
2. Successful lives: strengthening individuals and families to achieve self-sufficiency
3. Commitment to learning: empowering people of all ages through quality learning and skills development.

A total of more than 165 county-wide participants including nonprofit organizations, educators, community activists and Department of Economic Security personnel attended the four Community Conversation events. Four Action Teams were established as a result: Housing, Community Circle, Information and Referral, and Service Learning. These action teams were supported and coached by VISTA member David Galanty.

Read more »

Youth Development

Youth Count and the Youth Volunteer Corps recognized the need in the Tri-City community (Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley) for a single, readily available resource where volunteer and service-learning opportunities for youth could be found. Nick Dantzer has designed and recently deployed a new YouthCount.org which includes a member-based configuration that is reserved for Tri-City organizations, businesses, governments, schools, and others who are requesting volunteers. This website eliminates the "middle man" by members posting opportunities directly when a need is recognized, is kept current and up-to-date and, most importantly, links youth directly to volunteer and service-learning opportunities in the Tri-City area.

Read more »

Social Service Planning through Environmental Analysis

This project is incredibly important to Turning Point because non-profit organizations require a lot of outside marketing in order to successfully compete with other shelters and organizations for limited funds and assets. When looking at the community as a whole, the importance of youth crisis shelters and programs cannot be overstated. With rates of homeless and runaway youths on the rise, Life Skills programs need to be in place to teach children habits that will make them successful in life, in an effort to curb the cycle of poverty, and shelters need rooms and assets to take in the increasing number of youth. Overall, this helps to increase the quality of life generationally, so that youth of today can pass these skills along to their own children in the future, creating a cycle of information and awareness. 

Brian Coleman has completed, sent out, and received an almost 10 % rate of return on the first ever marketing surveys for Turning Point that will be part of a greater environmental analysis. Also relating to the environmental analysis, it has held the first ever focus groups in Turning Point's history. 

Read more »

Service Learning and Social Change

Right now at Ripple Kimberly and Lianne are working on establishing a full scale volunteer base to run the Thriftique in order to be more consistent in the hours that we are open. Once we have this in place we are creating an action plan to market the Thriftique, our services and, to also increase the connections that we have with the local organizations that we serve. We are starting to plan our Halloween Costume Fashion Show, which will take place the week before Halloween. Another one of our projects is to start Ripple Round Table Discussions about prevalent issues, their actual causes, and solutions to these causes as opposed to bandages to just aid and cover up the problem. These meaningful conversations will be starting in September. We are also working very closely with an Americorps member in designing a youth based project which is geared towards increasing their involvement in their community, issues that interest them and activism. Ripple has always had a goal of generating interests within local high schools for students to participate is service learning projects, by creating volunteer activities that fulfill educational standards and requirements and are interesting to the students and may increase their future involvement in service and activism. 

Read more »

Prescott Creeks Community Outreach

Cottonwood Youth Development

Women's Empowerment

Currently WEB is planning the first annual Women's Wellness Weekend, a three-day retreat for adult women of Yavapai County in June as well as the fifth annual WEB Conference for teen girls for September 2008, both hosted at Mingus Springs Camp on Mingus Mountain. Laure is also working on Transitions, a workshop series for older teens who are preparing to move into adulthood and the responsibilities that come along with it. Another important project is the WEB Resource Center, a library of books on topics ranging from sexuality and sex education to women's liberation and feminism history. The resource center is open to the public and is located at Prescott College on 220 Grove Avenue. In order to offer these programs and resources, WEB holds annual fundraising events throughout the year which generate over $20,000 in cash and in-kind donations.

Read more »