The Gila River Community Council recently awarded UPWARD $75,000 to provide outpatient therapy for children.  UPWARD provides occupational, speech, feeding, physical and music therapies to many low income children in the valley. Ms. Josefa Almanza, speech/language pathologist at UPWARD, stated “I will never forget the first time I placed my wheelchair bound client on the wheelchair swing on our adaptive playground. As a blind therapist, I sensed the priceless smile on his face and I will never forget his words ‘Josefa, I want to do speech therapy on the swing every week.’ From that day on, I value the power of words even more since he used a complete sentence to share his feelings.” We are grateful for the generous support of the Gila River Community Council!

Phoenix Suns Charities Supports UPWARD!

Phoenix Suns Charities presented UPWARD with a $7,500 check to provide nursing services for our children. They also donated two tickets to a Suns vs Milwaukee Bucks game in November. These will be raffled off to one lucky UPWARD staff member!

UPWARD Expands Board of Directors

UPWARD has two new board members! Missy Farrington and Bruce Heatwole joined the board in July! Missy is Director of Special Needs Ministry at Highlands Church in Scottsdale. Bruce is a retired public school administrator and is currently an adjunct professor at Glendale Community College. He was also very involved in Glendale city politics.