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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Celebrating Arizona’s Agents of Change

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Past, Present & Future

Tuesday, June 7th 2011
5:30 PM Reception, 6:00 PM Program

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral  (Olney Room Gallery)
100 West Roosevelt Street at Central Avenue  Phoenix, Arizona 85003

Will you honor us with your presence for our first fundraiser?

Yes, I will attend

No,  I cannot attend, but please count me in as a 2011 Founding Donor of Promise Arizona

Since its founding in June of 2010, Promise Arizona has trained over 500 leaders, including many youth, and built a base of over 1,500 volunteers to build a better Arizona for all.   Together we:

  • Opposed SB1070 through a 103-day prayer vigil at the Arizona State Capitol and sent a delegation to Washington DC to meet with the U.S. Justice Department.
  • Registered 13,040 voters in 2010, more than any other nonprofit organization in the state, and boosted Latino voter turnout in the November, 2010 election.
  • Helped to defeat anti-immigrant legislation in the 2011 Arizona legislative session that threatened to further divide our communities and distract attention from the real challenges facing Arizonans.

Join us as we honor the following agents of change:

Carolina ‘Curly’ Rosales de Hernandez

Curly devoted her life to advancing social change in Arizona, and we mourn her passage last July.  She fought side-by-side with Cesar Chavez to establish the United Farm Workers in Arizona, helped build Chicanos Por La Causa, was elected to the El Mirage City Council, and devoted 22 years of service to the Head Start program at Catholic Charities.   She is sorely missed.

Monsignor Antonio Sotelo

Msgr. Sotelo is a long-time advocate for the rights of immigrants and the poor and served as vicar for Spanish-speaking Catholics for the Phoenix Catholic Diocese.  Before retiring in 1999, he spent three years as pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish and 14 years as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish.  He still offers weekly masses and works daily in prison ministry offering sacraments and spiritual counseling.

Dr. Warren Stewart Sr.

Dr. Stewart is the Senior Pastor of the First Institutional Baptist Church of Phoenix. He is a true soldier for justice and equality, having led the fight for Arizona’s recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday as a paid state holiday. Dr. Stewart is a champion for the rights of all people, including immigrants, in our state. He is a founding board member of Promise Arizona.

Neighborhood Ministries

Neighborhood Ministries is a 30-year-old faith-based organization committed to seeing God’s justice in our community and lifting up the voices of those who are silenced.  They offer pre-school classes, a health clinic, college scholarships, and youth leadership development. Neighborhood Ministries is the first institutional member of Promise Arizona and a leader in our 2010 “Faith, Hope, Vote” voter drive.

Thirty Volunteers Receive GOTV Training from Promise Arizona

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(Phoenix, Ariz., Aug. 13) — Nearly 30 volunteers learned the ins and outs of getting registered voters to cast their ballots during a day-long training session Aug. 13, coordinated and presented by Promise Arizona.

The training covered all aspects of running an effective Get Out the Vote campaign, including door-knocking strategies to engage voters, the importance of volunteers sharing their own personal stories, roles and timelines leading to Election Day and running an effective GOTV.

“The skills the volunteers learned here today are the ones they’ll be able to use throughout their lives,” said Raquel Teran, Deputy Director for Promise Arizona.

Many of the volunteers were high school students who live in the areas where more than 1,055 voter registrations were collected this summer. Volunteers came from Carl Hayden, Trevor Browne, North and Maryvale high schools.

Now the second phase of the project will be to ensure those voters cast their ballots, whether its in an early mail ballot or by going to a poll.

The GOTV campaign is part of a project to register voters for the upcoming City of Phoenix elections for Mayor and Council. Promise Arizona, which collected nearly 13,000 voter registrations last year for the mid-term federal elections, initiated this voter project to get involved in the local elections and impact the budget decisions made by the city.

“We’ve seen too many library hours cut, afterschool programs decimated and parks go without proper maintenance,” said Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona. “We need to make sure the interests of working families and those not in the upper income brackets get their fair share of city services.”