StreeHeat-Ministries, a nonprofit charitable organization, had its first annual backpack drive for under-served Sedona students on Wednesday, August 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Club Wyndham Sedona in the Javelina Hall located at 1500 Kestrel Circle.
“On average, I serve 26 homeless students in grades K-12 every year,” Sedona Oak Creek Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Deana DeWitt said, explaining the need for direct support services to Sedona children. “These students are often in need of essential school supplies, notebooks, and backpacks. … Donations from individuals and businesses in our community make it possible to ensure our students and families get this extra support.”
StreeHeat-Ministries established the need for back-to-school backpacks by conducting 102 door-to-door interviews with residents, schools, district staff, and community organizations according to the Citizens Work Group.
The cost of $4,708 of school supplies and the 240 backpacks was funded through the city of Sedona’s Small Grant program which awarded the Las Vegas-based ministry along with 27 local nonprofits $200,000. StreeHeat-Ministries has been licensed in Sedona for the last nine years and is looking into a potential office in Uptown.
“We decided this year to engage in more community activity in the Sedona area,” Founder and President of StreeHeat-Ministries George Vaughn said. “This is our first big event in Sedona. I’m excited about it because this will be a great benefit for residents. Especially all the people that are in need. We started this program [in order] to be a blessing to the community.”
Vaughn is a Chicago-born and raised retired marketing representative and his job for 30 years was to coordinate union representation, and sees his current work with StreeHeat-Ministries as a continuation of his career.
“We fought for worker’s rights,” he said. “That’s what I did for 30 years, and I find myself now fighting for workers’ rights, to have a better life.”
This was StreeHeat-Ministries’ first-time applying to Sedona’s Small Grant Program and it was awarded about half of its requested amount. The Citizen Work Group noted that it would have fully funded the drive if it could. However, the total amount available to all organizations in the program this year was $200,000. There has been some indication from the city government that it will look into increasing the program’s funding starting in January when the city sets its priorities for the year according to Vice Mayor Holli Ploog.
“I’ve been doing community outreach and community service all my life,” Vaughn said. “What’s unique about what we do is we are a nonprofit charitable corporation. All donations [are] tax deductible, and we don’t have paid salaries. … I take 10% of my pension, and donate it to this organization monthly; faithfully. That’s how we survive and that’s how we have made it this far in the last 13 years, and I’m honored to do that.”
Streeheat-Ministries is looking at renting office space in Uptown however that is in the preliminary stages and hasn’t raised any funds for that expansion and wants to ensure that the project is locally funded.
“We’re thankful for the Wyndham Resort, the city and the Sedona Chamber of Commerce, and all of the volunteer workers that help us to coordinate,” Vaughn said. “This is the very first one and hopefully people will see that we are very sincere about what we do. We want to grow and be more of a blessing to the residents here.”
Leftover backpacks from the event are going into a storage facility that Vaughn plans to allow the city of Sedona to have access to and be able to distribute as needed.
“This is all city money, and the city has a right to have access to it,” Vaughn said.
“The City is fortunate to have StreeHeat’s services to help underserved k-12 students in need of daily necessities like books, paper and pens that ultimately will assist in preparing them for success in school,” city communications manager Lauren Browne said.
For more information about the organization, you can visit StreetHeatministries.org.
