The Heart of Arivaca: How Local Giving Helps Make Sure No Neighbor Is Left Behind
In a small community, taking care of one another isn’t an abstract idea. It can look like a hot meal delivered to an older adult’s door. A food box for a family going through a difficult season. Help keeping the electricity on. A familiar face checking in on someone who might otherwise spend the day alone.
In Arivaca, much of that work happens through Arivaca Human Resource, known locally as The Heart of Arivaca.
And through Shine Forward Southern Arizona, an initiative of the Greater Green Valley Community Foundation, people throughout our region can help make sure that work continues.
A Small Organization Making a Remarkable Local Impact
Arivaca Human Resource has been serving the rural Arivaca community since 1988 with a simple but powerful mission:
Empowering individuals toward health, well-being and stability by providing essential quality-of-life services and resources.
That mission comes to life every day.
Each year, Arivaca Human Resource delivers nearly 17,000 hot meals and more than 1,000 food boxes, with approximately one in three Arivaca residents relying on its support.
Those numbers tell only part of the story.
For a homebound senior, a meal delivery can also mean a wellness check, conversation and connection with another person. Some of AHR's drivers have been serving their neighbors for nearly a decade, and for some clients, that driver may be the only person they see that day.
Through programs such as Helping H.E.A.R.Ts, the organization also provides responsive emergency assistance for needs including utilities and medical expenses, helping individuals and families move from an immediate crisis toward greater stability.
It is grassroots community care in its truest form.
This Is Why Shine Forward Matters
The Greater Green Valley Community Foundation believes strong communities are built when local people, nonprofits, businesses and donors work together.
That belief is at the heart of Shine Forward Southern Arizona.
Shine Forward gives people an opportunity to discover and directly support participating nonprofit organizations serving communities throughout Southern Arizona. Instead of wondering where help is needed or whether one contribution can really matter, donors can see organizations doing the work right here in our region and choose where they want their generosity to go.
Arivaca Human Resource is one of those organizations.
Its Shine Forward campaign has a goal of $12,000, supporting its continued work to provide food, emergency assistance, senior outreach and other essential resources to the Arivaca community.
When We Give Locally, We See the Difference
There are enormous needs in the world, and it can sometimes feel as though one person cannot possibly make a meaningful difference.
Local giving changes that perspective.
A contribution can help put a meal on a neighbor's table. It can help an older adult remain connected. It can help a family through an unexpected emergency. And when those individual acts of generosity are multiplied across a community, something much bigger happens.
We strengthen the network of people and organizations that make Southern Arizona a place where neighbors take care of neighbors.
As Arivaca Human Resource puts it, “We don't have to do everything; we just need to do something.”
That philosophy beautifully reflects what Shine Forward is all about.
Help Shine Forward in Arivaca
The Greater Green Valley Community Foundation invites you to learn more about Arivaca Human Resource and the other nonprofits participating in Shine Forward Southern Arizona.
You can choose the organization or cause that speaks to you and make your donation through Shine Forward, helping keep your generosity connected to the communities we call home.
Because a stronger Southern Arizona isn't built by one organization, one donor or one community.
It's built by all of us, choosing to Shine Forward together.
