Beginning May 1, 2025, Pinnacle Prevention will be pausing our Seeds to Grow and Pots to Love programs for the remainder of 2025.

We use the word “pausing” intentionally, as this is not a permanent discontinuation of these important programs, but space to allow time to strategize. Due to uncertainty in the current funding environment, we must temporarily suspend activity in these programs to support the overall mission of this work. This decision was not made lightly, and we remain committed to supporting the food system, the community, and our shared future. Seeds to Grow and Pots to Love are community-informed programs that represent resilience, care, connection, and growth. Those needs and qualities remain, despite this and any other funding pause.  

Pots to Love began after a call our Executive Director, Adrienne Udarbe, fielded a call from a Double Up Food Bucks Arizona customer. The caller shared his gratitude and enthusiasm for fresh, local vegetables, but needed ideas on how to consume the produce, considering his significant dental challenges and limited resources to prepare the food. He had recently secured housing after a period of homelessness and had very limited cooking equipment. Adrienne thought – ‘What’s the point of ensuring people have access to food if they don’t have the tools to prepare it?’ so she unplugged her own toaster oven from her kitchen and took it to him. When she arrived, she was met by multiple neighbors in this housing unit who shared similar experiences – and from that Pots to Love was born, providing free cooking necessities to seniors and households in transition. The program started in 2019 and has since served 2,002 individuals across Arizona.

Seeds to Grow is also a program born out of a gap identified by our passionate community growers. Seeds to Grow provides annual infrastructure grants to new and emerging growers and producers and in turn, greater access to food in their communities. The program started when a friend and farmer from the Navajo Nation shared disappointment after not receiving funding from a national and competitive funding source. They voiced frustration at the lack of funding opportunities that would help support the needs for new farm businesses. The fact is, there are very limited funds available that help new farmers develop the capacity to grow.  Seeds to Grow helps address that gap for Arizona farmers. Many programs and communities need local, fresh produce and we have plenty of farmers that want to meet that demand; however, without the tools for streamlining their operations many are unable to bridge the gap. Since starting in 2020, Seeds to Grow has provided infrastructure funding support to 36 farmers for tools such as walk-behind tractors to streamline tilling by hand, hoop houses to address weather threats, cold storage systems, and more which has in turn resulted in increased revenue for farmers, increased food for community, and improved land use.

We know these programs are critical and they are unique in how we have funded them over the years. While other initiatives of ours have dedicated multi-year program funding, Seeds to Grow and Pots to Love have been supported by a combination of one time donations from organizational partners combined with supplemental funding from our organizational general funds. For transparency purposes, we can share that we are experiencing a decrease in general funds as a result of freezes and discontinuation of federal grants and a decrease in our indirect revenue which already operated at the lowest possible de minimis rate of 10%. We remain committed to finding new solutions to address these gaps and support the many others we hear about every day. We are actively seeking long-term funding solutions to support all our collective work.  In the meantime, we continue to be a resource to hear your needs and concerns, provide referrals where we know they exist, and reimagine together. Making space for this pause is hard for us. We will learn and evolve from this to see a future of new possibilities. We will keep you informed as the path forward emerges.

If you want to be part of the solution that revitalizes these programs or if you know funders with a shared interest in meeting the needs that Seeds to Grow and Pots to Love support,  you can donate and dedicate your donations specifically to revitalizing these efforts.
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With love – The Pinnacle Prevention Team

​This fall, Pinnacle Prevention is proud to have joined the consultant team (including tremendous partners at Nelson \ Nygaard and Alta Planning and Design) to work with the City of Phoenix Streets Transportation Department on the Phoenix Connected Active Neighborhoods (PhxCAN) project.
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PhxCAN started in 2023 as a community-focused approach to improving pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in each of Phoenix’s 15 urban villages. PhxCAN builds on the City’s existing Active Transportation Plan and Vision Zero Road Safety Action Plan, approved by council in 2023 and 2022, respectively. Year 1 of the PhxCAN project took the effort to Phoenix’s Central City and South Mountain villages. This year, the team has been engaging with residents in Maryvale and Alhambra. Alhambra’s boundaries include 7th street to the east and 43rd avenue to the west, between the Grand Canal and Northen Avenue. Maryvale spans broadly from Grand Ave. to the east past 99th avenue to the west, between the I-10 and Camelback Rd.

According to Smart Growth America’s bi-annual report, Dangerous by Design, the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metropolitan area saw 754 pedestrian fatalities between 2018-2022, up from 549 between 2013-2017. While PhxCAN alone won’t reverse the disheartening trend of ever-increasing pedestrian injury and deaths, it takes an equity-based approach, prioritizing early outreach and infrastructure improvement efforts in Phoenix neighborhoods with a higher prevalence and rate of pedestrian and bicyclist related injuries and fatalities.
Informed by community feedback, Year 1 infrastructure projects are in the final stages of being selected and the City will work to accelerate progress on getting them designed and constructed.
During the PhxCAN outreach process, community connectors are hired in each Phoenix village to help support engagement strategy and implementation. In the past two months, Alhambra and Maryvale community connectors have been joining the project team to talk to residents at YMCA’s, libraries, community centers, and community events. Additional community members have also joined the community connectors to participate in walk-audits in both urban villages (see photos below).​

​Beginning October 1, 2024, Pinnacle Prevention is transitioning to a 32-Hour/4-Day work week while maintaining full employee pay. We will be in a pilot period phase of this transition from October 1 through December 31, 2024; however, we fully expect that this will remain our permanent work week schedule while holding flexibility to work around unique needs for each member of the team.
 
Why are we making this change?
This is not a decision we came to lightly. Plans for this have been years in the making. We have been analyzing, watching, and observing to find the best path to make this feel possible for us. The short answer is we want to create internal systems that support the well-being and resilience of our staff. Research shows that a 32-hour/4-day work week results in improved overall wellbeing, improved mental health, and improved morale.
 
The long answer to the why, is that this decision aligns with our values and position on justice. At Pinnacle Prevention we are in the work of policy and systems change and this means re-examining our societal norms, especially norms around labor and burnout. We know we are better able to support others when our team feels like we have time for rest, family, and nurturing our hobbies and passions. We aren’t alone in this change, either. Many countries, governments, and states in the U.S. have taken policy action towards shorter work weeks. Adjusting work schedules also benefits the earth. The drop in commuting and work-related travel is leading to a reduction in harmful emissions, improved air quality, and reduced energy consumption.
 
What changes can you expect when working with us?
So, what will this look like for Pinnacle Prevention operations? Effective October 1, 2024, our new business hours of operation will be Monday – Thursday from 8AM-5PM. Our office will be closed Friday-Sunday. There’s no one-size-fits-all and team member flexibility, choice, and autonomy in scheduling is important to us. Some team members will be working 8-hour days Monday-Thursday. Other team members have opted to work 6.5-hour days Monday-Friday with Friday being a ‘meeting-free/focused project time’ day.
 
Will we be available when you need us? We remain committed to our relationships with you, our partners and community.
 
We are intentionally piloting a flexible schedule. Many of our partners and friends work weekends, especially those operating farmers markets. You will still see us at the markets occasionally on weekends for visits or technical assistance support or for events, and then team members will flex that time later in the week. We know we’ll need to be flexible in our planning. We are holding the tension between the appreciation for more time, and the balance of what currently feels like already stretched bandwidth across our small team. We know we can’t just drop a day and then carry on with business as usual. During the pilot period we will be trying and testing new work habits and processes to adjust to workload and time management. This will include examining our culture and habits around email and meeting scheduling, for example.
 
A Thought About Supporting Resilience 
We’ve had a chance to speak with a lot of folks who work in various roles in the larger system. From folks who grow the food that feeds us, those working to get food to those who need it, and those who work in various programs to improve the systems and environments that support us all. We’ve also talked to the folks most impacted by the system, our fellow Arizonans and neighbors who care about their families and communities and just want dignity and peace for all.

One thing we know is true from listening to their stories, is this work is often slow and heartbreaking. Systems change doesn’t always move at the speed in which people deserve and it is often riddled with setbacks. There are wins, and moments of joy and connection, too. But we hear it’s often hard to celebrate those moments when we know “we’re not there yet.”

Many communities and families in Arizona already know the value of rest, joy, and celebration in survival. Polyvagal theory teaches us that nervous systems need connection, rest, and joy. Our nervous systems talk to one another and seek this co-regulation. We see the 32-hour work policy as a trauma-informed way to support our collective resilience and co-regulation.
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To work in systems change means to be in it for the long-haul. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be inviting more conversation around the role of rest, joy, and connection in the work. We hope that you’ll share your thoughts and wishes and that together, we can prioritize these needs in the systems change we are working to achieve.
 
Why are we talking about this publicly?
We are also choosing to publicize these plans, as we believe flexible work policies should be normalized. We want this not just for ourselves, but for all of you too. We are calling for our friends, partners, businesses, and government agencies to join us in transforming our work culture and norms because our collective wellbeing is intimately connected.
 
We invite you to be in conversation with us about this. Share your immediate thoughts and reactions to this with us – both the glimmers of possibility and the tensions. If you’re interested in exploring tools for making this feel possible at your organization or reading the research behind it visit our friends at https://workfour.org/.
 
With love – The Pinnacle Prevention Team

 
Transportation impacts many aspects of day-to-day life. It not only helps us get where we need to go, it also impacts cost of living, environmental quality, and health. Public transportation options such as bus, light rail, streetcar, and paratransit provide affordable mobility options that allow individuals to get to work or school as well as access basic needs such as health care, food, and recreation. This is especially true for those that do not own a car or those that are physically impaired or immobile. The question is, how well does our public transportation system work for people?
The Mesa Public Transit Project was a community engagement effort led by Pinnacle Prevention in 2023 to better inform transit, land use, and development decisions in the City of Mesa, however, the project’s findings can also benefit other parts of the greater Phoenix region.
Partnership with A New Leaf, Aster Aging, Concordia Charter School, Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, and Native health as well as ten members of the Mesa community which comprised a community advisory board called “The Transit Team” helped shape the engagement process. Through key stakeholder interviews and a series of seven community conversations, we spoke with over 70 Mesa residents about their experiences moving around Mesa and other parts of the Valley. 

​What did we find out?

• An array of transportation options, including a high-quality public transportation system and walking and biking options, are necessary to move the large population of residents and visitors throughout Maricopa County on any given day.
• Quality public transit systems, while associated with major urban centers, can help preserve a small-town feel in all cities and neighborhoods. People like to live near places where they shop, play, and learn. Providing easy access to everyday destinations through a network of public transit and safe streets helps foster more community connection and combats social isolation.
• More people want to try public transit, but navigating the system can be stressful. From buying your ticket to planning your ride to switching routes, the process can be intimidating. A greater variety of resources from cities and transit authorities can help people feel more confident to take their first ride. Local organizations and agencies can partner with transit agencies to help spread the word.
• For regular public transit users, the cost of transit can add up over the course of weeks or months. Combined with the ever-increasing costs of housing and food, ensuring that public transit remains affordable is critical. Reduced-fare programs can help, but not everyone is eligible.
• Free neighborhood circulators provided by cities such as the Tempe Orbit, Mesa Buzz, Phoenix MARY, and Glendale Urban Shuttle are valued by residents. Increasing public interest in on-demand neighborhood transit vans such as Chandler Flex and Avondale WeRide is something cities should be paying attention to.
• To help riders feel secure and comfortable onboard transit, staff such as operators/drivers, security guards, and transit customer experience coordinators should be well trained in trauma informed approaches and de-escalation to best assist individuals in need and to help ensure a positive transit experience for all riders.
• To help riders feel secure and comfortable offboard transit, cities should perform strategic investments to build and improve bus shelters. Shade helps protect people from extreme heat and other weather events. Lighting improves perceptions and experiences of safety. 

​What can individuals and organizations do?
Valley Metro is working hard with city governments to increase transit ridership levels, which have fallen since the pandemic. Transit professionals also recognize the need to improve access, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. The voices and experiences of your organization and its clients matter.

• Co-host transit education events to educate individuals about how to use transit
• As Valley Metro rolls out its fare modernization program, help those with appropriate technology download and get started with the Valley Metro App
• Engage in local and regional transit planning processes to weigh in and make your voices heard
• Advocate for transit-oriented communities. Transit oriented communities differ from transit-oriented development, which is more focused on economic development than overall connections to and within communities.
• Vote for programs that invest in the future of our transit system

The full Mesa Public Transit Project report describes the process and findings of the project in more detail. The study includes 27 recommendations about how to improve public transit in the east valley and beyond. Click here to get your copy!

A couple months ago we were pleased to make available two infrastructure and equipment grants of up to $12,000 to Arizona-based farmers and ranchers. We were excited and overwhelmed to receive over 60 great applications. 

Today we want to share with you the grant awardees: The Nalwoodi Denzhone Community and The Coldwater Coffeehouse and Bakery.

Nalwoodi Denzhone Community is a Non-Profit Organization providing revitalization services to the San Carlos Apache children and families through creative and life transforming projects on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. 

Here's something they wanted to share: 

​NDC is extremely grateful for this opportunity to partner with Pinnacle Prevention through the Seeds to Grow Grant. We have been waiting for the opportunity to launch our Regenerative Farming Program and are excited to be given this chance. Our diverse but small team of dedicated staff is eager to bring this project to life because of the great impact it could have: to build a sustainable, healthy community that is full of life for many generations to come.  Thank you, Pinnacle Prevention!"

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The Coldwater Coffeehouse and Bakery is a cooperatively owned farm-to-table cafe in Old Town Avondale. 

Here's what they told us after finding out they were one of the recipients:

Being awarded the Seeds to Grow grant is a huge confirmation of this project our worker-owned cooperative has embarked upon. Since 2018 we have struggled to farm 1/4 acre with hand tools. While the experience has presented us with an in incredible opportunity to learn, vision-build and develop a love for the land under our stewardship, it has also showed us how impossible it is to feed our community, just a few of us working so hard for so little harvest in return. The equipment we will purchase with this grant facilitates three major aspects of our work (bed prep, seeding and harvesting) but most importantly, it allows us to bring more land into production and through that process encourages our group to grow in number, nurturing community members into active members of the co-op.

Thank you Pinnacle Prevention for the opportunity you have given us, and our community!

Liv Brashears
AZ Farmers Market Nutrition Coordinator

At my public bilingual school growing up, one of the biggest celebrations of the year was César Chavez Day. The entire K-8 school – every student, teacher, staff member, and even parents – came to our César Chavez Assembly. We spent weeks preparing for the event, and everyone had different roles to contribute to the day of remembrance for the líder de los campesinos.

First graders worked on acrostic poems, coming up with tributes to Chavez’s life starting with each letter to spell out his full name.  Fifth graders performed on their recorders De Colores, a classic folk song that was sung at the United Farm Workers union meetings. Middle schoolers decorated large banners with the movement’s symbols and cries, which were hung up across the school. They re-created the red flags with the stark black eagle and painted posters that read ‘¡Huelga!’ ‘¡Viva la Causa!’ and ‘¡Sí se puede!’.
Our music teacher led us in singing El Corrido de Cesar Chavez, ¡Viva Dolores Huerta!, and Nosotros Venceremos (We Shall Overcome).
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Even in his brilliance as a grassroots community organizer, Chavez did not lead alone. I want to fully recognize two pivotal co-organizers in the movement for farmworkers rights, Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong.

The Filipino-American story has been largely erased from the farmworkers narrative, but let us uplift the immeasurable contributions of radical labor activist Larry Itliong. In 1965, Filipinos were the first to walk out of the fields and launch the now-famous Delano Grape Strike.

At the meetings of the predominantly Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Itliong, they practiced the Unity Clap and cried in Tagalog the phrase Isang bagsak – when one falls we all fall.

Dolores Huerta came and spoke at my school’s Cesar Chavez Assembly when I was in the first grade. I wish I could better remember her words from that day, but I remember her impact. I felt the excitement that reverberated through my schools halls that Huerta, a conspirator for justice for those exploited, was coming to speak to us. We had just concluded singing the lyrics that Huerta is the pride of the people, and I understood that our heroes are not just in the past, and that their living legacies and La causa have spanned generations.

In a few weeks on April 10th, we will celebrate Huerta in her own much-deserved day of honor. Her decades of activism have reached far beyond farmworkers rights, including fighting for women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, and advocating tirelessly to lift people out of poverty.

As I reflect on the lives of Chavez, Huerta, and Itliong, the impact is wide. It feels even more profound when we consider that the farmworkers movement was not carried out entirely by one charismatic organizer, but was sustained by a multi-racial, cross generational, multi-lingual movement with deeps roots in faith and music. Yet even in their combined fortitude organizing against the powerful landowners of California’s Central Valley (and beyond), Chavez, Huerta, and Itliong were humans who did not always agree about the right strategies that would ultimately bring fair wages, union contracts, and safe working conditions to long-maltreated farmworkers.

Fast forward to today, here’s what we cannot disagree on: those directly impacted by systemic injustices have the solutions and it is imperative that the rest of us follow their leadership. Collectively at Pinnacle Prevention, an organization working to advance food justice, we commit to continually centering the lived experiences of our neighbors who are most marginalized by the current food system. The work continues. Luckily, Dolores Huerta has already coined a salient slogan for perseverance: Sí se puede, compañeros.
 
References:

Pawel, M. (2015). The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography (Reprint ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing.
Pasion, A. (2020, October 25). From “Isang Bagsak” To #FilipinxForBlackLives, Filipino Identity Has Always Been Political. One Down. https://www.one-down.com/articles/from-isang-bagsak-to-filipinxforblacklives-filipino-identity-has-always-been-political
For readers to engage further:
              Support: The United Farm Workers’ active campaigns    
Watch: A Song for Cesar in theatres in Scottsdale and Tucson March 2022.
Watch: “Dolores” Documentary Film | Dolores Huerta Foundation
Read: A Journey for Justice: the Life of Larry Itliong ​

This fall, the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) teamed up with farmers from the Prescott Farmers Market, Yavapai County SNAP-Ed, and Manzanita Outreach to bring locally grown produce directly to seniors in the Verde Valley.
 
This partnership was spurred into action with leftover SFMNP funds in order to serve the community of seniors in Cottonwood. Many local advocates stepped right up and were willing to take on some extra responsibility to make this happen. These key advocates include Rebecca Serratos from the Yavapai County Cooperative Extension Office, Marie Higgins and the Prescott Farmers Market team, Ben Burke from Manzanita Outreach, and of course the Prescott, Chino Valley, and Paulden-area farmers.
 
We’re grateful to Aguiar Farms, Hernandez Farms, SuperNatural Sprouts, and Reyes Farms for collectively producing over $18k worth of produce that went directly to low-income seniors. All farms are paid directly and in full through SFMNP funds. Next time you’re at the Prescott Farmers Market or the Flagstaff Community Market, find these farms and express thanks by purchasing their wonderful varieties of produce.
 
Senior CSAs through SFMNP are special for a few reasons, some of which include the convenience and ease it provides the seniors recipients. We purposefully integrate the senior CSAs into their pre-existing food pick-up routines.
In order for this to happen, there are many pieces that takes a team effort behind the scenes: transporting, packing, securing materials, and other logistics. As we’ve just named, it was a whole village that came together in Yavapai County to bring this to fruition.
 
A total of 367 seniors benefitted from $50 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables, either delivered through the Manzanita Outreach home delivery program, or provided alongside seniors picking up their monthly commodities box at the pantry. Contents of the mixed produce bags for the seniors included arugula, kale, beets, tomatoes, radishes, turnips, microgreens, fresh herbs, and more. Burke of Manzanita Outreach emphasized how special it was for seniors to receive fresh greens. He shared that at the food pantry, heartier vegetables are easier to come by, but to give out fresh, high-quality greens grown in county was a true treat.

In the ongoing work of facilitator and organizer adrienne maree brown, she invites us to imagine. Time and again she writes that justice work is science fiction work because activists take on the task of building a future that does not exist yet.

Because if we can’t imagine that future – personally or collectively – how will we make it a reality?

Truthfully, it can be hard to picture a world without hunger or poverty. When I first tried to, I could only come up with the desire to dismantle existing systems of violence: capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. And don’t get me wrong, we should all be and stay committed to dismantling those systems. But in that exercise, it was clear that I had little practice training my imaginative muscles.
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So with deeper reflection, my dream for us is to live in a world that is treated with abundance, where land, power, and resources are returned to indigenous peoples’ stewardship, where accountability is so high that everyone answers to community needs, and where conflict is embraced with maturity, love, and mutual understanding. The only surviving structures are those that protect, uplift and heal.

In the anti-hunger advocacy world, we know that people who are forced to face food insecurity cannot wait for the policy changes (or better yet, the revolution) that promise to end hunger one day. Hungry people need to be fed, and not just with any food. In line with naming the possibilities we dare to imagine, those foods need to be culturally appropriate and fully nourishing to the body and soul. Agency in food choice has to be restored. And there should be robust opportunities to consume locally sourced food as well as space to build a healthy relationship to food. I find tremendous hope in working from a place not of wishing that were true, but in every small way possible practicing it until it is true.

 Let’s live and work wholeheartedly into the possibilities of our most radical dreams. 

Check out adrienne maree brown’s books and her blog for more wisdom & inspiration.

Liv Brashears
Farmers Market Nutrition Programs Coordinator