Tucson nonprofits work in partnership to confront community challenges

By Jimmy Magahern, Tucson Local Media Contributor

For Malea Chavez, the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona is more than just a workplace. As a child, Chavez’s family was among the many in Tucson who relied on the 48-year-old organization’s services.

“My mom was a social worker for many years in Tucson, and as a kid, I used to go with her to pick up boxes at the food bank and deliver them to a lot of the families that she worked with,” she recalled. “And then later on, when my mom divorced my stepdad and was a single mom with two kids, we became beneficiaries of the Community Food Bank services ourselves.”

Now, as CEO of the very organization that once helped her family, Chavez is living proof of the “full-circle” journey that many in the nonprofit world experience.

“Throughout my entire career, even as an attorney, I’ve always felt like there was a big connection between having food security and a sense of empowerment for folks,” said Chavez, who worked at legal self-help centers in Oakland for the Superior Court of California before returning to her native Tucson in 2022. “It’s a gift to be able to bring that kind of stability and support into any community.”

Chavez’s personal journey from food bank beneficiary to CEO underscores a broader theme in Tucson’s nonprofit sector: a deep understanding of the issues they address, often born from lived experience. In interviews with key figures from five of Tucson’s largest nonprofits, it’s clear that these personal connections foster a collaborative spirit among the city’s nonprofit leaders, as many have experienced firsthand the importance of holistic support. 

“I think Tucson is a very collaborative environment, which is wonderful!” said Chavez. “There’s a lot of partnership here. We work with organizations like Interfaith Community Services, Primavera Foundation and many others to provide the support our community needs.”

Together, Tucson’s nonprofit organizations form an interconnected web that provides a comprehensive safety net for the city’s most vulnerable populations. From addressing basic needs like food security to offering crucial behavioral health services and educational programs, these nonprofits ensure that no challenge is faced in isolation.

Brittany Smith, communications director at Youth On Their Own (YOTO), said her organization focuses on helping homeless and vulnerable youth in Pima County graduate high school by offering monthly stipends based on student attendance (up to $350 depending on their need and school attendance), and a mini-mall where students can get essential items like food, hygiene products, school supplies and household goods for free. 

But they also guide students to other services that can help them navigate bureaucratic hurdles like obtaining a driver’s license or securing housing.

“We connect our kids to other resources for some of the things we don’t do,” she said. “Pretty much anything they need, we’ll try to guide them along the way.”

Health, particularly in lower-income areas, is often seen as having social determinants, such as housing, childcare, transportation and food insecurity. Clinton Kuntz, CEO of El Rio Health, prefers the term “social drivers of health,” emphasizing that these factors are not deterministic but rather influential. 

“I don’t believe housing or any of those things determine your health outcome,” he said. “They are definitely drivers that influence it, but the person has a lot of control there.”

Nevertheless, he also sees the importance of partnering with other nonprofits to address the broader social factors that impact health outcomes.

“We can’t always meet those social needs, but we try to partner with others in the community who do,” Kuntz said. “There’s a great nonprofit community that works here, in housing, food insecurity and other areas. There’s generally somebody in each of those areas that we partner with, and we have teams that go out together and meet people where they’re at.”

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