TO MEET THE COMMUNITY’S NEEDS… you’ve got to meet the community, where they live! And in a place as geographically varied and far-flung as Southern Arizona, this means hitting the road. Recently, eight of our Community Impact & Philanthropy teammates took to the southeastern corner of our state to visit eight nonprofits located in and around Cochise County.
What we found was a tremendously tight-knit feeling of community, as evidenced by the robust turnout for a blood drive happening that day at Portal Rescue. A devotion to preservation, as shown by Chiricahua Land Conservancy and Chiricahua Regional Council, given the incredible beauty and fragile nature of that National Monument. And an absolute commitment to a literal lifesaving mission, personified by the team at Arizona Community Health Workers Association in Douglas.
There were great efforts that are growing in response to the community’s needs, with expanding educational programs at the Community Montessori School of Bisbee now serving pre-K through high school, and the many nutritious meals, made from fresh and locally sourced food, doled out by the dedicated crew at Goar Park Lunches.
The challenges they face have much in common with nonprofits anywhere else, with rising needs and tight budgets, but one of the unique difficulties, compared with somewhere like Tucson, had to do with the relatively small local pool of volunteers given the size of these towns.
Despite this, these organizations persist in a beautiful way, because although the small populations yield fewer volunteers, the fact that everyone in these places tends to know one another also has a way of amplifying the buy-in. Genuine small-town collaboration at its best, and the simple act of caring for one’s neighbors being valued and upheld.
We’d like to thank the following nonprofits for extending such a warm welcome to our team:
AZ Community Health Workers Association
Community Montessori School of Bisbee
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