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When you’re helping the community to prosper, sometimes you have to use both hands.
That is a lesson APS learned recently when partnering with a Flagstaff-based organization dedicated to helping first-time home buyers and empowering families who have been victims of domestic violence to become independent.
APS is a proud partner with Building Opportunity Through Housing and Neighborhood and Development Services, Inc. (BOTHANDS), a non-profit organization helping many northern Arizona families to build for the future.
The organization joined with APS for the first time in 2004 for the "A Home of Their Own" breakfast, a fundraiser aimed at reaching out to business leaders, organizations and the community.
Thanks in part to APS’ help; more than 175 organizations and individuals pledged their support for BOTHANDS. APS also offered to print the organization’s newsletter and annual report, and provided other in-kind services.
But for APS, that was just the jumping off point.
While BOTHANDS has numerous programs including home ownership programs for first-time and low-income buyers and is also involved in the construction and renovation of low income housing and much more. We believe one of the organization’s most significant programs is aimed at helping families who are survivors of domestic violence to become self-reliant through its Sharon Manor Transitional Housing program.
That is why APS employee volunteer Marti Montoya, along with APS, took the initiative to begin a Back-to-School campaign to help the mothers at Sharon Manor buy new clothes and school supplies for their children.
"I wanted to be involved in a volunteer program that I felt passonite about," said Montoya. "Children deserve every opportunity to be safe and to get a good education. We saw a need...When companies and individuals do their part, great things can happen."
BOTHANDS Executive Director Helen Hudgens Ferrell agreed.
"Without volunteers like Marti we simply would not be able to help as many families as we do," said Ferrell.
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