TRENDSETTERS
34 Years of
Giving Back
O
ne of the cornerstones of Valley Partnership’s mission is community outreach, and at its end-of-the-year Friday Morning Breakfast on Dec. 17, the organization presented The Salvation Army Tempe with a check for $60,000. This generous donation was part of its annual community project. For the past 34 years, Valley Partnership has been giving back to the community through monetary donations and labor. Each year, it selects a nonprofit organization that can benefit from the skills, efforts and supplies provided by its partners to renovate and enhance facilities for children and those in need. In pre-pandemic years, the community project was an annual hands-on event that brought together upwards of 300 leaders and members from the real estate and development
6 | January-February 2022
communities for a day of service. Past projects include painting murals and building patio furniture for New Pathways for Youth in Downtown Phoenix; creating parks, gardens and playing fields for the kids at Sunshine Acres Children’s Home in Mesa; and transforming a vacant parking lot into an urban farm for The Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Phoenix. “We always ask ourselves, ‘Where can we make the biggest impact,’” says Carrie Martin, vice president of events and marketing for Valley Partnership. “With organizations such as St. Vincent de Paul or The Salvation Army, you’re helping hundreds of thousands of people.” In addition to raising funds for The Salvation Army, this year’s project included an on-site component. On Dec. 4, slightly more than 100 members volunteered at The Salvation
Army’s Tempe location, performing landscape maintenance, painting and packing food and hygiene supplies. “Our focus was fundraising, but The Salvation Army building has been around for about 100 years. It’s just tired, and it needed some work,” Martin notes. The location serves more than 600 families and clients, offering life-saving services and support. The money raised by the Valley Partnership Community Project will help with needed repairs, reorganization of the facility and additional food and hygiene bags among other things. “With so much going on the past year or two, people just want to do something good,” Martin says. “Our community project is a way for them to not feel so helpless. It’s a true feel-good kind of moment.”
