September Staff and Program Accomplishments

The IT staff (plus a few others) took time out for a little team building.

Yolanda Mendoza, human resources generalist and point of contact for Westside Head Start (WSHS), has been with Catholic Charities for six years. As WSHS ramped up for all the teaching staff to return to the 2016-2017 school year, it meant a lot of dedicated time and effort from all the support staff, including Yolanda. Thank you, Yolanda!

Rosie Esquivias discovered how you don’t have to be a social worker to impact lives at Catholic Charities. Recently, she was working the switchboard and was contacted by a family that lost their daughter in Mexico. They were desperately looking for help. Rosie was able to get parish-based help to that family, got the Mexican Consulate involved and has helped achieve a peaceful resolution to an otherwise horrific tragedy.

Alicia O'Louglin and Cathy Peterson met with several staff at St. Joseph's Medical Center and found great ways to collaborate with our Pregnancy Parenting and Adoption program!

Tami Bohannon was named Outstanding Fundraising Executive by the Arizona chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Great job, Tami!

The Unaccompanied Minor Program got a new director. Brian Jauregui has a master’s degree in clinical counseling psychology and has held various positions in the behavioral health/social service/research fields over the last nine years. He was with Catholic Charities for the last six months in a different role.

Cathy Peterson’s leadership throughout our portfolio of programs has helped Catholic Charities attain COA accreditation (again!) and become a direct federal grantee for our highly respected Westside Head Start program.

Henry Behr, Carrie Mascaro, Jean Littlehale and Tami Hartman provided amazing leadership as we prepared for our COA site visit and during the visit. This effort required the team leaders to go above and beyond their usual job responsibilities. The result was well worth the effort.

Dave Paddison helped incorporate new and better standards in finance/accounting to help stabilize and solidify our agency’s financial position and greatly improve our annual budget process.

Steve Capobres leadership in overseeing Catholic Charities housing and social enterprises helped us secure two new affordable housing sites (85 total units) within a mile of our main office and also achieved first-ever operational profits for The Refuge Café coffee house and wine bar. He also had an article featured in the Arizona Republic, read My Turn: Solving homelessness takes a community

Renee Targos and her team expertly managed the marketing and media plan to hugely expand the reach and recognition of Catholic Charities in the community.

Amada Parra designed a new comprehensive onboarding training plan for the In Home Services program that allows for each new hire to have adequate, consistent and thorough training over a two-week period that prepares them for the position and best situates them to serve families affectively.

Judy Alvidrez, who is lead youth development and activities coordinator at UMP, had six teenagers complete the independent living program this summer. In the classes, the youth learn about banking in the U.S. as well as budgeting on a limited income. They also learned how to do a successful apartment hunt and how to read a lease agreement.

Julie Drinkard, a member of the housing team, was featured on the Coconino Community College website. She talked about going back to school and getting hired at Catholic Charities! See the article.

Rick Brust was awarded the 2016 Kevin Collins Award by the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness for consistently performing above and beyond the call of duty. This is a huge award given to one person for the entire State of Arizona. Great job, Rick!

Our Foster Care Staff has been hard at work!They are still waiting on the final number but estimate there will be more than 28 adoptions from foster care this year.

We’ve got some news in Bullhead City. Natalie Miller and Carol Pease are team lead counselors for Mohave county! We also have a new AZ Families F.I.R.S.T. staff, Melony Rape (pronounced Rapae). We’re happy to nearly be fully staffed (1 part time staff left).

Through all of our staff changing, there has been some super human work that the rest of the Bullhead City staff provided. Amy Gregorich and Sheri Sheneman both had times of handling the entire county (excess of 110 cases). It seemed impossible, but they did it. Thank you, Bullhead City staff!