Desert Schools Federal Credit Union’s Shine On campaign gives six Arizona charities, two of which are in downtown Phoenix, money to help make a difference.
The Shine On campaign is now in its second year and plans to donate $60,000 to six local nonprofits.
The charities are Future For Kids, StreetlightUSA, Save the Family, Singleton Moms, St. Joseph the Worker and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona. Each charity was initially given $5,000. People can vote on ShineOnAz.org, and for every 5,000 votes a charity receives it earns an extra $1,000 from Desert Schools.
Two of these charities, St. Joseph the Worker and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona, are based in downtown Phoenix.
“St. Joseph the Worker was founded in 1988 by volunteers of the Notre Dame, when a homeless individual in the park receiving a meal made a comment — ‘I could go to work if I had tools’,” said Candace Sherwood, director of development for St. Joseph the Worker. “Since then St. Joseph the Worker has stayed true to our mission of providing low-income and disadvantaged individuals with the tools and resources they need to secure quality employment and transform their lives.”
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Desert Schools has been a partner of St. Joseph the Worker for several years, Sherwood said.
“Participating in the Shine On campaign has brought tremendous awareness to our organization,” Sherwood said. “Our goal is to continue to build new relationships like we have with Desert Schools, with the business community and the employment community, so that we can continue our mission of helping every individual who seeks to end their crisis through employment succeed.”
Also located in downtown Phoenix, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona provides one-on-one mentoring services for at-risk youth through their traditional community program, as well as a site-based program where children meet with a mentor during their school lunch hour, according to the press release.
“What we do is we always have new kids coming onto our waiting list. The goal for the organization is to continue to find matches and maintain matches for those kids as well as bring new kids on,” said Brandi Devlin, director of community engagement for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona.
Those who participate in the program spend four hours a month over a one-year period with their mentors. Some activities they participate in include riding bikes or going to the library.
“We had a great relationship with Desert Schools and they supported us in many different ways, including being sponsors at some of our events,” Devlin said.
More information on the campaign and how to vote can be found at ShineOnAz.org.
Contact the columnist at Holly.Bernstein@asu.edu.
