A closer look reveals how heat has gripped the Las Vegas Valley in the past two months.
Las Vegas Sands will donate $300,000 to fight youth homelessness, it said in an announcement Thursday.
Sands Cares, the resort-casino’s charitable arm, is commemorating Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth’s 20th anniversary this year with a continuation of cooperative funding, it said in a news release. The company and nonprofit have partnered on youth homelessness initiatives, including a summit on the issue and a strategic plan for the region.
Sands’ donation will help NPHY strengthen services and pursue long-term solutions, the group said. The goal is to make incidence of youth homelessness “rare, brief, non-recurring and equitably addressed,” according to the release.
Thursday’s donation is not Sands’ first to NPHY. Since prioritizing youth homelessness in 2015, Sands Cares has donated more than $1.7 million to NPHY, according to the release.
Ron Reese, senior vice president of global communications and corporate affairs at Sands, said the initiative is one of the “most impactful” that Sands Cares has undertaken.
“We are deeply committed to impacting the incidence of youth homelessness in the Las Vegas Valley, and NPHY has been our strategic and valued partner in leading that charge,” Reese said in a statement. “Our continued investment is representative of the tremendous results we’ve seen NPHY
achieve for our community’s vulnerable youth, as well as its leadership in developing long-term solutions to address the issue.”
The 2021 donation will help close out NPHY’S Housing Expansion Campaign to offset rising real estate costs, a barrier in the nonprofit’s plan to establish a transitional housing facility, according to the release.
The rest is earmarked for production of the Southern Nevada Youth Homeless Summit; expansion of NPHY’S nighttime staffing model for its Safe Place, emergency shelter and transitional housing programs; and infrastructure support for critical operational areas such as grants administration, finance and facilities management.
Arash Ghafoori, NPHY’S executive director, said Sands Cares’ longterm support has helped power the organization’s work. Las Vegas Sands co-presents an annual Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit with NPHY and helped spur the Movement to End Youth Homelessness in Southern Nevada, an initiative to end youth homelessness in the region.
“Without Sands, we would not have been able to establish the Movement and Summit — yet Sands’ involvement as a catalyst behind expansion of our offerings is much deeper than these most visible programs,” Ghafoori said. “Sands has helped us grow our back-end infrastructure to sustainably support program expansion — a crucial component to successful nonprofit management that is often overlooked. The company has served as a true partner in the fight to end youth homelessness in Southern Nevada, not only as a donor, but as an investor and thought partner in our work to move the needle on this devastating issue in our community.”
The Review-journal is owned by the family of Dr. Miriam Adelson, the majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands Corp.