Meet the 2022 Community Awards Honorees: Exemplary Project, Program Development and Partner

This week we're brining you stories about three of our 2022 Community Awards honorees. Help us celebrate their work by following us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and sharing these story posts. Visit our website for the full list of honorees.

Thank you to our Presenting Sponsor PNC Bank and our Awards Sponsors Arizona Community Foundation, AmTrust Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and State Farm.

2022 Exemplary Program Development: RAIL CDC

RAIL CDC’s underlying community-centered economic inclusion strategy addresses barriers through a combination of equity-focused structural changes – shifting policies, practices, and resource flows, and relational changes – shifting power dynamics at a distinct scale, scope, and intentional integration of the community.

2022 Exemplary Project: La Frontera Center of Hope Apartments

In May 2022, La Frontera’s Center of Hope Apartments opened in Tucson to assist low-income families and individuals experiencing homelessness. The 100-unit project took more than five years of planning and $14 million from nine different sources to complete, including a grant from the Home Matters Arizona Fund.

2022 Exemplary Partner: Vanguard

The Vanguard Strong Start for Kids Program is driven by decades of research that support high-quality improvement, expansion, and sustainability efforts for early learning centers. Co-led by Crystal Shannon and Rashanda Perryman of The Vanguard Group Foundation, the program has a history of supporting child care systems-building work in Arizona, where child care providers and families have faced unprecedented challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In Arizona, 48% of families live in child care deserts and lack critical access to high quality child care and pre-k opportunities.

Thank you to our sponsors

Arizona Department of Housing | Northern Trust | U.S. Bank | Vitalyst Health Foundation