Support our supporters

Three Phoenix-based groups support Season for Sharing:

❚ Nina Mason Pulliam Trust provides matching funds. ninapulliamtrust.org

❚ Desert Botanical Garden offers a Season for Sharing donation option to ticket buyers for the annual Los Noches des la Lumnarias holiday lights event. dbg.org ❚ Dig It Gardens, 3015 N. 16th St., Phoenix, hosts weekly yoga classes, with proceeds going to this year’s campaign. digphx.com and dozens of daily programs, the Children’s Museum of Phoenix is designed for children from birth to age 10 to learn while playing.

The organization received a $7,500 Season for Sharing grant last year to help fund its Raising a Reader and Get Ready to Read Early literacy screening programs. These programs help parents improve their child’s reading skills before entering kindergarten and provide free museum admission for at-risk populations. “We want to ensure that everyone, despite their socioeconomic background, has access to these high-quality early literacy programs and all the resources that the Children’s Museum of Phoenix has to offer,” said Kelley Fitzsimmons, director of education and programs.

“Without supporters like Season for Sharing, we wouldn’t be able to fulfill our mission and all the work we’re doing with young children and their families wouldn’t be possible.”

Sedona Wood is a volunteer for education programs at the museum. What started as something to do for college scholarship service hours led to a career change.

“I was ... going to be a firefighter,” Wood said. “Being on the teaching end of things, interacting with the kids, seeing what works and what doesn’t, shifted my focus to teach science instead.”

Wood said the change was inspired by helping students learn and have fun at the same time. She’s helped students plant vegetables in the museum’s garden and helped them develop motor skills while making slime.

At the museum, students can also play with anything they can touch, including crafts in the art studio, the BlockMania building blocks and an indoor shopping market.

“I think it’s really important to show kids that learning can be fun,” she said. “A lot of the time, they don’t even know they’re learning.”

Foundation for Senior Living: Delivering meals to older adults

For seven months, Barbara Patchen has delivered meals for the Foundation for Senior Living two days a week. Her route begins about 10 a.m. and she makes 35 stops. Other volunteers arrive hours earlier at the Peoria nonprofit to cook and package the food.

“I have come to really care a lot about the people on my delivery route. They are very gracious, lovely people so appreciative of what’s being done for them,” Patchen said.

“Just being around them with a few minutes on the delivery — it’s enjoyable just to see them laugh a little bit.”

The Foundation for Senior Living has provided seniors and adults with disabilities home-delivered meals, housing, in-home health and wellness care and caregiver support for 45 years. Clients range from age 18 to 103.

The group received a $5,000 Season for Sharing grant last year to support its nutrition program, which provides thousands of meals and snacks a year.

Carrie Smith, chief of operations for the organization, said they are thankful for donations from Season for Sharing because there is a great need to get resources to older adults. Smith said seniors often have to decide whether to purchase food, pay bills or buy medication.

Their meal delivery service gives them one less thing to worry about.

“Our mission really is to serve the most vulnerable,” Smith said. “We want to make sure people have nutritious food and they have a safe place to live.

“There’s always going to be a need for food because there are limited resources out there that provide food to people. Donations and grants are really the key drivers in making sure that people have nutritious meals.”