SRP earns Gold Award for Healthy Arizona Worksite

Salt River Project has been recognized by the Healthy Arizona Worksite Program for achieving the Gold level of excellence in worksite wellness.

The Healthy Arizona Worksite Award recognizes employers that are making efforts to positively affect the health and well-being of their employees, their families and their community by implementing comprehensive worksite wellness strategies.

The minimum qualifications to be considered for the award include attending the Healthy Arizona Worksite Program training and developing a plan to improve employee health and safety. To qualify for the Silver and Gold levels of the award, employers need to support employee health through policy and systems changes.

“Safety, health and wellness are part of the culture at SRP,” said Renée Castillo, senior director, Human Resources at SRP. “Our employees work hard to ensure our customers receive reliable and affordable electricity and water and they deserve effective and accessible wellness initiatives where they work.”

The employee programs and benefits offered by SRP that contributed to the Healthy Arizona Worksite award include free flu shots, weight management assistance, health risk assessments and biometric screenings, wellness programs for family members and education seminars on preventing and controlling diabetes.

Cox Charities seeks grant applicants

Cox Charities is asking Arizona nonprofits that focus on K−12 youth and education programs to submit proposals for grants valued at up to $10,000. This year’s grant cycle is now open and closes on May 29. The grant application can be found online at www.azfoundation.org/grants and can be viewed once a login is created.

In 2018, Cox Charities distributed nearly $544,000 to more than 100 youth and education-focused nonprofits across Arizona. Cox Charities funds are raised through employee-driven fundraisers and personal contributions throughout the year, as well as community fundraising partnerships. Since its inception in 1996, Cox has awarded more than $7.5 million in grants to nonprofit organizations for youth education programs that help build our next generation of community leaders.

Cox Charities has funded local nonprofits that focus on science and technology, arts and culture, safe and healthy lifestyles, overcoming disabilities, mentoring, literacy, leadership development, social skills development, and other areas benefiting youth in the state. 

“Cox Charities is committed to supporting children in our state by funding youth and education-focused nonprofits that provide vital programming,” said Susan Anable, vice president of public affairs for Cox Communications. “As we have for many years, Cox Charities supports the communities in which we do business and is a commitment made by all of us from the Cox family, together with the 3,100 Arizona employees.”

Additional support is given to these communities through volunteerism by Cox employees. Cox Arizona employees have access to nearly 54,000 hours of paid volunteer time each year. In an effort to be the most trusted provider of communication and entertainment services, Cox supports Cox Charities’ grant recipients by encouraging its employees to volunteer time in support of many past recipients, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs, Make-a-Wish Arizona, Desert Botanical Gardens, Child Crisis Arizona, Banner Health Foundation, and Childhelp.

Southwest Behavioral & Health Services earns HAWP Gold Award

Southwest Behavioral & Health Services (SB&H), an innovative leader in behavioral health, has been awarded the Healthy Arizona Worksites Program (HAWP) Gold Award, which recognizes Arizona businesses that are making efforts to positively affect the health and well-being of employees, their families, and their community. The criteria for this award evaluate evidence-based worksite health initiatives and promising programs.

“As a community-based behavioral health provider, we have prioritized serving our community for the past 40 years,” said Southwest Behavioral & Health Services marketing director Lynda Riford. “Winning this award only reinforces the idea that we care about employee health and wellness as much as we care about fostering it in our community.” 

HAWP is a public health initiative that has been developed through a partnership between the Arizona Department of Health Services and the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. This statewide program provides Arizona employers with training, technical assistance, tools, and resources to design, implement, and evaluate worksite wellness initiatives. The Gold Award is HAWP’s second highest acknowledgement.

Diamondbacks award nearly $1 million to community

The Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation will grant $988,370 to Arizona non-profits in 2019, including a total of $768,000 to nine Arizona non-profit organizations as part of the 2019 Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Awards and more than $220,370 for 46 program grants.

This year’s Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Award winners were recognized during a special pregame recognition before Wednesday’s D-backs vs. Yankees game.

The 2019 Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Award winners include:

• Assistance League of Phoenix – Received a $100,000 grant to purchase and retrofit a 40-foot “Arizona Diamondbacks Delivering Dreams Bus” that will travel to schools with children living in poverty and provide new school uniform packages. The new bus will be retrofitted into a mobile dressing center, complete with a waiting area, four private dressing rooms, racks of clothing and a shoe fitting area.

• Flagstaff Shelter Services – Received a $100,000 grant to expand their homeless shelter and open 30 much-needed low-barrier sober-living beds. The emergency shelter expansion will create a separate space where vulnerable adults can find safe shelter without jeopardizing their sobriety.

• Foundation for Blind Children – Received a $70,000 grant to purchase two alternative wheelchair accessible minivans. The vans will be used for a variety of programming including taking their blind students on field trips, providing transportation for weekend adapted recreation programs and taking parents without access to transportation to the parent education program hosted weekly at Foundation for Blind Children.

• GiGi’s Playhouse Phoenix – Received a $53,000 grant to complete The Studio Café at GiGi’s Career Development Center. The café will provide adults with Down syndrome who complete adult learning courses through GiGi U, an opportunity to learn important job skills in a functioning café and empower them to break through barriers, which are currently obstacles to meaningful employment.

• Homeward Bound – Received a $45,000 grant to construct two natural playgrounds on the Homeward Bound campus. The playgrounds will provide homeless children an opportunity to enhance important observation and problem-solving skills and provide places for hands-on, spontaneous outdoor play.

• Matthew’s Crossing Food Bank – Received a $100,000 grant to purchase a refrigerated cargo van that will enable them to pick up additional food donations and allow them to expand their food delivery services to schools through their Meals to Grow program.

• Native American Connections – Received a $100,000 grant to complete the Saguaro Ki housing project through their HomeBase Youth Services program. Saguaro Ki will provide a supportive housing option for homeless youth (18-24 years of age) who are working on a long-term, self-sufficiency plan.

• Neighborhood Ministries – Received a $100,000 grant to build the D-backs Dugout Technology Center at the Neighborhood Ministries Youth Empowerment Center. The tech center will bridge the well-documented “digital divide” for low-income youth of inner-city Phoenix by offering junior high, high school and college students access to computers and high-technology as well as tutoring, design learning, college access and employment services.

• Valley of the Sun YMCA – Received a $100,000 to renovate a village of four cabins at Camp Sky-Y in Prescott, Arizona. The YMCA’s Camp Sky-Y summer camp experience was created to help children and families grow socially, emotionally, cognitively and physically and is accessible to all children regardless of income.

Since 2002, the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation have awarded 90 Grand Slam Awards totaling more than $7 million. The grants range from $25,000 – $100,000 each and fund programs and projects that increase capacity or improve efficiency for the non-profits’ operations. The D-backs renamed the Grand Slam Awards the Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Awards in 2016 in honor of D-backs Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick.

In addition to the Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Awards, the D-backs also provide program grants to non-profit organizations statewide ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. This year the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation awarded 46 program grants totaling $220,370 and have awarded more than 1,310 program grants totaling more than $5.7 million since 1998. 

The D-backs and the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation have donated more than $65 million to the Arizona community since its inception in 1998.