Seeds of Hope History and Purpose

The Cabana Community Center program was established in 1992 by the first Executive Director of Seeds of Hope, David Brubaker, who actually moved into the Cabana Neighborhood, a single unit apartment neighborhood, referred to by the local residents as “the projects.” This new director started a program to turn the neighborhood around through partnerships with community alliances, the local police department and the company that solely owned the neighborhood of rentals. Prior to his moving into the neighborhood, drive by shootings and the sale of drugs were commonplace. He and his wife started several small clubs for the kids out of their house and they began to see signs of improvement in individual kids.

In 1995 a local crack house in the Cabana neighborhood was converted into the Seeds of Hope Community Center stood as a symbol of integrity to the neighborhood, as well as a safe-haven for children. Brubaker eventually moved out of the neighborhood and a community center programs director was added to manage the list of clubs and programs that are run by peer leaders and volunteer adults. In 1996 Seeds of Hope hired the first paid programs director of the Community Center, Vangie Saucedo, with a mission of building the center into a professional environment for after school children’s programming and mentoring of youth.

In 2002 one of the first youth that had participated in the Peer Leader Program and was personally mentored by Saucedo, graduated from high school and became the first client to successfully complete the program and become an employee. In 1999 crime decreased by 72% after Seeds of Hope’s continual pressure brought about a change in property management ideology. A new leasing manager of the neighborhood, which is now called Terramonte Homes, changed her lease to work with the Arizona Crime

and Drug Free Multi-housing Association. This brought about dramatic changes that the coalition of concerned agencies and leaders had been attempting to see happen for several years in the neighborhood. There have been no drive by shootings for over five years in the Cabana-Terramonte Homes neighborhood. Graffiti dropped from 2 dozen incidents in 2000, to a couple of incidents in the last two years.

In 1998 the Peer Leadership Program started. Several of the Peer Leaders received a Governors Award for their work with the center in 1999. In 1999 The Cabana Community Center housed a youth choir called the “Tune Squad.” This Choir won a third place award in a regional competition the first year. In 2000 the choir won second place and took first place in 2001 in the regional Salvation Army Arizona/New Mexico competition. They advanced to a national competition in California and took second place. The choir was celebrated for being a predominantly mixed, minority

choir. In 2003 the center moved to the Westside where it resides at 525 W. Melrose where Seeds of Hope has launched another community initiative. After announcing the move, the Casa Grande City Council agreed to support the move with the donation of land in Cruz Park to build a multipurpose facility to house the Westside program. The new facility will be open to other clubs and programs when it is completed in 2005.