The intent of this project is to expand access to healthy, nutritious local food for all members of our community, especially low-income citizens, while providing education, and linking community and economic development and family-self-sufficiency. Community Food Connections (CFC) is requesting support to leverage this work and two of its programs, Farm to School and the Phoenix Public Market, which builds capacity for small, local farmers and micro-businesses. Partnering with Arizona Homegrown Solutions (AZHS) we will reach out to near-by low-income neighborhoods and schools and work together to teach Market customers, school children and community members how to raise and prepare food for themselves to improve their health and generate income, eat healthier, and to support local farmers and businesses, a critical component to healthy bodies and a healthy local economy. CFC and AZHS will host urban farming classes at the Market and at two community gardens on a regular basis. These classes will teach adults and children how to create their own vegetable gardens, raise chickens and implement sustainable growing and environmental practices. They will also encourage children to get involved in and become part of the process, and make healthier food choices. In addition, CFC will strengthen its Farm to School program, which links local farmers to school cafeterias so children receive fresh local produce in their school meals, create school gardens, and receive classroom education by farmers and gardeners. This improves the nutritional content of the children’s meals, supports local farmers and helps children begin to know and respect where their food comes from. CFC staff that have experience working with small farmers and understand packaging requirements for schools and gardening have begun linking these elements together. Without someone assisting the farmers and schools it is difficult for small farmers unaccustomed to the requirements of large schools’ meal programs and schools that only deal with national food distributors, to work together. CFC will be the bridge to get things in place. CFC also serves as a clearing house for schools that need produce but do not know who might have it locally. The project also supports Arizona Home Grown Solutions, which focuses on bringing gardens directly to communities. Their “Designing for Peace” project assists low- income communities in learning how to compost for waste reduction and soil improvements, plant trees for food and passive cooling, build vegetable gardens, and harvest rain water. Once these communities build their gardens and begin producing food they can eat what they need and sell the surplus at the Phoenix Public Market. CFC hosts AZHS at the Phoenix Public Market with its Community Exchange Table where community members that work with AZHS can sell their product for income.

All of these activities, including holding urban farming classes, bringing local food to schools, and raising it in low- income communities, increase citizens’ knowledge of how to live healthier, generate income for low-income residents and small local farmers and gardeners, build community, and share the seed of a new lifestyle for our children.

3. Giving Area(s) supported:

Education
Children
At Risk Citizens

4. Location of the project area (if applicable).

The project will take place at both the Phoenix Public Market in Downtown
Phoenix and at several sites in the Central Phoenix area where gardens can
be planted and programs run by AZHS.

5. Target population(s) served.

The target populations are low-income citizens that lack access to healthy
food, citizens, including children, that are looking to produce more food
themselves, small local farmers struggling to remain viable and school
children who need healthier meals.

www.phoenixpublicmarket.com

http://www.azhomegrownsolutions.org/

This collaborative project will increase access to dental care for special needs patients in Maricopa County. Dentists throughout the Valley will participate in hands-on training and learn how to provide dental care for special needs individuals, both children and adults. This largely underserved population has physical, mental and/or developmental disabilities that create a challenge when it comes to accessing dental care, which is an important part of their overall health and long-term quality of life.

The Desert Mission children’ s dental clinic will serve as the host site for two training sessions during the year. Up to 20 dentists will participate in each session. There is currently a waiting list of Valley dentists who want to participate in the training.

The Arizona Dental Foundation (ADF) has a partnership with three dentists who are nationally recognized in the field of special needs dentistry. They will provide the training. ADF staff will register local dentists for the training and conduct an evaluation survey upon completion of each session.

Once dentists have completed the training, their names are included in the state registry of providers who can serve special needs patients. Families and group homes are always calling ADF to find a source of dental care for this population.

Gompers Habilitation Center is another project partner. Their clients are screened to identify appropriate candidates to be served during the training. These are children and adults with mild to moderate disabilities to receive cleaning and restorative treatment in the teaching environment. The dentists are exposed to a variety of types of disabilities during the training.

Each training session has three 8-hour components:

1) The first eight hours the dentists learn:

• Oral conditions for persons with a developmental disability.
• Establish a relaxing treatment environment.
• How to integrate the special patient population into the general practice.
• That it’ s not so much about special equipment, but about compassion and tolerance.

2) The second day is hands-on learning: conducting oral hygiene instruction, taking x-rays, and performing restorative dentistry (cleaning and treatment). It includes:

• How to transfer a patient to the dental chair.
• Finding a comfort zone using behavior management techniques.
• Basic stabilization using physical restraints or mild sedation.
• Reasonable treatment planning.
• Innovative x-ray techniques.
• To ensure patients have adequate dental care equipment at home. Some patients need an electric toothbrush if they can’ t go through the mechanics of brushing on their own. They may need an elastic band on the toothbrush handle if they don’ t have a good grip.

The second day is open to dental assistants whose dentists have already completed the introductory portion. Thus, a dentist can build capacity of his entire team to serve special needs patients in a private practice or community clinic.

3) Each dentist must then complete and document an additional eight hours of interaction with patients with a disability. This may include treatment, observation of a dental procedure, mentoring a peer or providing caregivers in a group home with oral hygiene instruction.

2. Giving Area(s) supported:

At Risk Citizens

3. Location of the project area (if applicable).

The project service area is Maricopa County. Dentists who are members of the Arizona Dental Association will be invited to participate in the training program. The Association has 2,500 dentist members statewide. The majority live/practice in Maricopa County. There is currently a waiting list of almost 100 dentists who want to participate in the training. Sharing the Prize Seed funds will only support the training for Valley dentists since that is the geographic focus of the grant. Other funds will be obtained to support training for dentists from other Arizona regions.

The training will take place at the Desert Mission’ s children’ s dental clinic, located at 9201 N. 5th Street in north Phoenix. The clinic recently expanded to six operatories and is equipped with the latest dental technology.  It already serves as a teaching site for dental, dental hygiene and dental assisting students.

Service beneficiaries will be special needs individuals, both children and adults, who live in the Valley. They will be able to access dental care by connecting with the increased number of dentists who are trained to meet their needs.

4. Target population(s) served.

The project has two target populations. The first is dentists who want to learn how to treat special needs patients and improve the oral health of this under served population. This will increase the capacity of the dental professional community to provided much-needed services. Some of the ’students’ may be dental faculty or retirees who volunteer at local community clinics.

The priority service population is people with special needs who need dental care -both children and adults. They are ethnically and socially diverse and live throughout the Valley. Some live with their families; others live in group homes or institutions.

Examples of special needs patients include those with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, Down Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, developmental delays mental illness, autism or paralysis. This population often presents unique challenges for dental treatment, thus they have difficulty accessing care. Special needs patients need dental cleanings more frequently than the general population because they may have habits that minimize their self-cleansing abilities (pocketing food in the cheeks, habitual tongue movements, swallowing habits or mouth breathing). Preventive care is crucial in this population; once a tooth has decayed and needs to be extracted, special needs patients do not tolerate tooth replacement very well. Their attention span is shorter -15 to 20 minutes -which makes restorative procedures a challenge.

5. Need(s) being addressed by this project.

Nearly 12% of the U.S. population has some type of severe disability (physical and/or mental) that interferes with independent functioning. Severe disability becomes more common with age. With the swell of aging baby boomers, there is an increasing number of special-needs patients who need dental care.

Disabilities can affect everyday life -even the smallest actions such as brushing teeth can be problematic for patients with special needs. Some disabilities can hinder the skills needed to perform simple oral hygiene functions, increasing the possibility of tooth decay and dental disease. But since dental health affects overall health, it’s important to monitor the oral hygiene routines of special needs patients and stay on top of regular dental visits.

In the past three decades, a trend toward de-institutionalization has brought a diverse population into our communities. Today, 80% of persons with developmental disabilities are living with their families or in community based group residences. They and their caregivers look to providers in the community for dental services. Too many caregivers consider oral hygiene as ‘grooming’ as opposed to ‘health-care.’ Sufficient access to local dentists is the only guarantee of promoting good oral health in persons with disabilities.

6. Other project details that illustrate how the project adheres to the purpose of the Sharing the prize seed grant program.

This project will help ’spread the prize seed’ by expanding Valley dentists’ capacity to reach new target populations. This includes retired dentists who, through continuing education, can volunteer at community clinics such as the Desert Mission. This project will expand the Desert Mission’s role as a teaching site in the community. It will expand ADF’s capacity to connect dental resources with families who need them most – through sites such as Special Olympics, Child Protective Services, foster care, Valley Life Habitation, Gompers, and Schools for the Deaf and Blind.

CASE HISTORY

M, an 11-year old female with severe autism, had severe tooth decay, leading to pain and weight loss. Her family had taken her to several dentists over the previous few months and learned they were unable to treat her without sedation which, when added to treatment costs, was completely beyond their means. She was a prime candidate for demonstration of non-medical restraint techniques. M received multiple extractions and fillings during the training and follow-up visits. Her family reported that since M is not focusing on painful teeth anymore, she is making noticeable improvement in her skills development and socialization.

http://www.jcl.com/desertmission/

http://www.azdentalfoundation.org/

]]> http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/more-informtion/desert-mission/feed 0 http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/policies/142 http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/policies/142#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:46:11 +0000 admin http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/policies/142 Sharing the Prize Seed Collaborative Community Improvement Project Proposal

1. Project overview, including primary objectives and how it will strengthen the greatervalley community.

The mission of Family Promise is to move homeless families with children from crisis to selfsufficiency.We do this by collaborating with over 30 interfaith congregations throughout the Phoenix area plus over 1,900 volunteers from these congregations as well as community service groups. Our program has two phases. First is an Emergency Sheltering Program in which the families recover from their crisis and make a plan to get back on their feet. During this emergency phase the volunteers at 17 host congregations provide healthy meals and shelter for the night, plus individual mentoring. During the day our staff helps the families make a
plan to get their children into daycare and school, analyze their job skills, search for jobs if they do not have them or locate job training so they may improve their ability to earn a living wage, and find affordable housing. We provide individual and family counseling to help them find social services, affordable daycare, schools, and job resources. After at least one adult has found work, the family may apply for the second phase of our program, Transitional Housing. In this phase the family pays a modest program fee and lives in an apartment at our facility. The family may stay in this program for approximately 3 – 6 months until they are stable and able to make it on their own. We are requesting the Sharing the Prize Seed Grant to support a Transitional Housing apartment at our facility on Belleview Street in south Scottsdale. This apartment helps us provide support for a family recovering from homelessness for an extended period of time, increasing the chances of successfully helping these families become self-sufficient. Our ultimate goal is to help homeless families become self-sufficient so they can live independently. We understand that children tend to replicate their living environment as adults, and at Family Promise we seek to break this cycle of poverty by addressing the challenges faced by homeless families.

2. Giving area(s) supported:
O Education
X Children
X At Risk Citizens

3. Location of the project area (if applicable).

The Daycenter and Transistional Housing apartments are located in southeast Scottsdale. Family Promise takes client from anywhere in the greater Phoenix area who meet the standards of the program.

4. Target population(s) served.

Family Promise serves homeless families with children under 18 in the greater Phoenix area. In order to participate in our program, parents must be able to work in the U.S., and abide by our zero tolerance policy for drugs, alcohol and abuse. Our client base is generally first time homeless families who are under financial stress and have lost their homes but have the resilience and desire to work hard to become independent again. Our program is a proven model, one that provides a safe environment for children and their families while they work through their personal housing crises. Since we opened our doors in 2000 in Phoenix, we have averaged a success rate of 70%. Statistically, 60% our adult clients are single parents with young children while 57% of our overall clients are children. The Homeless Street Count conducted in late January 2009 by the Maricopa Association of Governments found 230 homeless families living on Maricopa County streets, a 370 percent increase from the previous year’s count of 49 families. This count does not incorporate the number of families living in shelters or doubled up living with families or friends.

5. Need(s) being addressed by this project.

The population we serve, homeless families in Maricopa County, is growing rapidly as a result of the economic climate. During this economic downturn, we see a new type of homeless families: some are professionals who have lost their jobs and subsequently their housing. They are generally frightened by their instability and have lost confidence in themselves. Family Promise strives to move these families from Crisis to Self Suffiency. Unlike other
shelters, Family Promise is not just a place to stay, it is a program designed to help these families become stable and back on their own. The addition of the transistional housing program was a result of collaboration with major funders such as the Steele Foundation, the BHHS legacy Foundation, the Nina Mason Pulliam Trust, our dedicated and hard working Board of Directors, and all of our participating and supporting churches.

6. Other project details that illustrate how the project adheres to the purpose of the sharing the prize seed grant Program.

We partner with 17 area congregations that serve as hosts to the homeless families, and an additional 13 congregations who provide volunteers and financial support. Our co-sponsor is one of these congregations. Over 1,900 volunteers each year provide services plus warm and friendly interaction and a sense of community. With our new transitional housing program, significant in-kind volunteer contributions including renovations and maintenance of the new facility, tutors and volunteers serving the children, and mentors helping parents learn new skills to live independently. We have begun collaboratiing with the City of Scottsdale through a nearby community center providing us with human services and recreational activities. We are an official partner in the GateWay Community College Master Plan which provides us the opportunity to send clients to the Maricopa Skills Center
for job training. We also participate in the intern program at ASU School of Social Work, which provides hands-on experience for social work students. We also collaborate with Community Information & Referrals CONTACS hotline; Watkins Overflow shelter; The Salvation Army; and CASSo We partner with Goodwill Career Services centers for job training and job placement; and Mountain View Health Clinic for families who do not qualify for AHCCCS medical services.

More Information, Photos, and videos

Partners: Tumbleweed Center / YMCA

More Information, Photos, and videos

]]> http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/establish-drop-in-resource-center-for-homeless-youth-ages-12-24/feed 0 http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/create-garden-surprise-share-grow-and-learn-community-improvement-project http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/create-garden-surprise-share-grow-and-learn-community-improvement-project#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:38:09 +0000 admin http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/?p=124 Connect West Valley residents to nature and deeper sense of community.  An organic garden will be created where community members will share, grow and learn together which will be the site of Growing Gardens, Growing Community workshop series.  The Garden will provide Benevilla’s kitchen with organic produce which serves 1,400 meals per month for families, children and seniors – specifically seniors experiencing early to middle stage Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and pre-school children.   The workshops at the proposed Garden@Surprise will reach 450 people and will be expanded to reach another 450 people at the Garden@Rio in Tempe.   They will teach sustainable organic gardening so that people can grow seasonal vegetables at their own homes, to improve their health and nutrition.

Partners: Rio Salado/Benevilla

More Information, Photos, and videos

Partners: New Global Citizens/AQUILA Youth Leadership

More Information, Photos, and videos

]]> http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/2010-summer-summit/feed 0 http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/train-dentists-to-provide-dental-services-to-special-needs-patients http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/uncategorized/train-dentists-to-provide-dental-services-to-special-needs-patients#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:32:13 +0000 admin http://sharingtheprizeseed.org/grant/?p=118 This project is hands on training for dentists to learn how to provide dental care for special needs children and adults who have physical, mental and/or developmental disabilities that create a challenge to access dental care.   The program will provide training for 40 dentists, who are currently on a waiting list for training.  Gompers Habilitation Center will partner with this project and help identify appropriate candidates to be served during the training.  They will receive cleaning and restorative treatment in the teaching environment.  The training will also be open to dental assistants whose dentists have already completed training so that a dental facility or dentist will have the entire team to be able to serve special needs patients.  Teaching will occur at the Desert Mission’s children dental clinic.

Partners: Desert Mission/AZ Dental Foundation

More Information, Photos, and videos!

Partners: Creciendos Uniodos /Golden Gate Community Center

More Information, Photos, and videos

Partners: Community Food /AZ Home Grown Solutions

More Information, Photos, and videos!