Valley of the Sun United Way

Valley of the Sun United Way (VSUW) works with key partners to help us reach our MC2026 Goals

Goals within these areas of focus include:

-Decrease food insecurity by 50%
-Increase the number of individuals with access to affordable healthcare by 100,000
-Reduce homelessness by 50%
-Increase 3rd grade reading proficiency by 25%
-Increase youth age 16-24 engaged in education and employment opportunities by 38%
-Increase preparation of individuals for a living wage job by 33%
-Increase achievement of higher paying employment by 20%

VSUW employs many strategies, such as:

Tutoring/Academic Assistance: improving child care by training educators and parents; providing early grade literacy support; embedding literacy activities in summer youth programs; and creating a robust cradle to career pipeline so students succeed in school and life.

Homelessness: supporting emergency shelter and diversion efforts; providing housing stability and support to families; providing permanent supportive housing to those experiencing chronic homelessness; and providing events to connect individuals to vital resources.

Hunger: supporting emergency food efforts; providing support to schools to run breakfast programs and provide weekend meals to students in need.

Financial Stability: providing financial coach training to individuals working with clients struggling with poverty.

Community Empowerment: working with communities on solutions that best fit their needs, like school beautification projects, food literacy workshops, and community gardens.

VSUW has a talented pool of experts in early childhood education, youth development, financial stability, and hunger and homeless services. These experts lead “Community Impact" staff teams that collaborate with partner agencies and initiate and direct VSUW-driven programs to serve the health and human service needs of people across the region.

VSUW's strength is in its collaborative approach. By working in collaboration with more than 400 local organizations, 5,000 volunteers, and tens of thousands of individual donors, VSUW is able to make tremendous strides in its efforts to break the cycle of poverty for our most vulnerable neighbors.

VSUW’s recent accomplishments include:

1- Tutoring - 15,764 beneficiaries of One-to-one and small group tutoring was provided to improve reading scores and study habits of students.
2-Mentoring - Trained and screened adults provide one-to-one mentoring to support youth academically, socially, and/or personally to 5,084 youths.
3- Developmental Screenings - Screenings assessed physical, cognitive and social benchmarks. Referrals were provided as appropriate, based on results to 2,639 children.
4- Job Training - Provided access to credentials via work-based learning, apprenticeships, internships and career exploration to 370 adults.
5- Emergency Shelter - Emergency shelter was provided to 16,756 persons in need of safe place to sleep.
6- Utility assistance was provided to 11,088 families pay overdue utility bills.
7- Rental assistance was provided to 8,633 families in danger of eviction.
8- Emergency Food was distributed to 1,081,692 families at food banks, to students at schools and through delivery to homebound seniors.