2025 Snapshot: Desert Mission Impact

A Message from Our Executive Director: 2025 Reflections

In 2025, Desert Mission honored its deep roots in Sunnyslope while expanding its reach to support individuals and families across the broader communities we serve, offering spaces of connection, care, and opportunity. Through the coordinated strength of Lincoln Learning Center, Adult Day Health Care, Living Well, and the Food Bank, we supported children, adults, older adults, and families with services designed to meet real needs and support long-term well-being. By aligning our programs across the lifespan, we deepened our impact and reinforced Desert Mission’s role as a trusted community resource.

Guided by thoughtful planning and a deep commitment to community well-being, our work this year focused on building stability, fostering resilience, and creating pathways to self-sufficiency. As demand for services continued to rise, Desert Mission remained a trusted and essential presence, meeting people where they are and responding with innovation and compassion.

In partnership with our dedicated staff, volunteers, board members, and community collaborators, we advanced meaningful initiatives that reduced barriers and strengthened connections. Together, we embraced new opportunities, refreshed long-standing practices, and continued to adapt in ways that honor our mission while preparing for the future.

To everyone who shared their time, talents, resources, and generosity in 2025, we thank you. Your belief in Desert Mission propels our mission forward and strengthens our collective impact. We invite you to reflect on the highlights of the year and celebrate the lives touched through our shared efforts. As we look ahead, we remain grateful for your continued partnership and inspired by what we can accomplish together.

With sincere appreciation,

Haeli J. Miceli
Executive Director, Desert Mission and Community Services

Our 2025 Snapshot

Volunteers

Desert Mission began with a small group of dedicated volunteers who saw a need in their community and chose to step in. That same spirit of service continues today. Volunteers are truly at the heart of all we do, and our work would not be possible without their time, care, and commitment.

In 2025, a significant surge in demand at our food bank created an urgent need for additional volunteer support. We issued broad recruitment callouts, and the response was extraordinary. Individuals, families, community groups, and student programs stepped forward in record numbers. With the steadfast support of our longtime volunteers and the inspiring response of those who newly joined us, we were able to meet growing needs and expand our volunteer network during a critical time. We are deeply grateful to every volunteer, whether serving for years or just beginning in 2025, who makes it possible for Desert Mission to care for our community.

• Dedicated core volunteers: 190
  • Adult Day Health Care: 5 
  • Lincoln Learning Center: 3
  • Food Bank: 183
• Total number of volunteer groups: 266

Adult Day Health Care

Desert Mission’s Adult Day Health Care creates a safe and enriching environment for seniors, offering specialized, community-focused programs that promote an active and independent lifestyle. We provide dynamic social, cognitive, and recreational activities to enhance well-being, while also supporting caregivers through respite care, resource navigation, and caregiver support groups. Our comprehensive approach helps both members and their care partners thrive.

In 2025, we responded to rising community need by increasing program enrollments by 19 percent, expanded connection across generations through a partnership with Young Arts Arizona that brought a teaching artist into intergenerational art experiences, and enhanced engagement and well-being with the addition of a Rendever Virtual Reality system made possible by our generous donors.

• Total members served: 79 
• The average length of membership is 3.13 years
• Members with Alzheimer’s and other types of Dementia: 90%
• Members receiving financial assistance: Approximately 52%
• Ages
  • Youngest: 53
  • Oldest: 100
• Veterans: 20% 

Food Bank

Desert Mission Food Bank is committed to addressing the growing needs of our community by providing nutritious food to individuals of all ages. We offer support through both direct services at our front door and innovative programs that expand food access across the Sunnyslope community and beyond, throughout the entire HonorHealth network. With strong collaborations with local schools, medical clinics, housing communities, and more, we ensure that essential support and food access continue to reach those who need it most.

Onsite at the Food Bank

In 2025, demand soared, and we rose to the challenge, serving a historic record of 460 households in just 5.5 hours. For 58% of our guests, it was their first visit to a food bank. Our community answered the call with an outpouring of volunteers and donations, ensuring neighbors had access to food when they needed it most. Now that rising numbers are the “new normal,” we continue to look for volunteers’ assistance. To accommodate growing numbers and streamline operations, the food bank received a generously donated walk-in cooler and three-door fridge, expanded the front market area to offer more food, and installed long-awaited A/C units, improving safety and comfort for volunteers and staff while helping preserve the food we provide.

• Total households served onsite: 65,222 (13% increase) 
• Total individuals served onsite: 137,234 (23% increase) 
• Total pounds distributed onsite: 4,003,701 (31% increase) 
• Households that visited a food bank for the first time: 58%
• Households that visited one time only: 44%

Offsite community nutrition programs

Last year, we expanded access to food and essential resources across our community in meaningful ways by launching our Mobile Farm Stand program and securing critical funding for an additional van and the GusNIP Produce Prescription Program, to increase access to fresh, healthy food. We broadened the reach of our food pantry network by adding four cancer care pantries, two school pantry sites, one community housing location, two clinic-based food box sites, and seven HonorHealth employee pantries.

• School pantries: 
  • Number of school pantry distributions: 22  (doubled from 2024!)
  • Number of households served: 3,151
  • Pounds of food distributed: 65,488.30 
• Snack Packs:
  • Washington Elementary School District: 21 schools / Deer Valley: 1 school
  • 14,190 snack packs distributed (90.6% increase from 2024!)
• Farm stand events: 27 
• Number of gardens: 5 
• Clinic food boxes: 273 

Lincoln Learning Center

Lincoln Learning Center is a diverse early childhood care and education facility, serving children from a wide range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and recognized as a five-star provider of the First Things First Quality First program, we are dedicated to ensuring that high-quality early care and educational opportunities are accessible to every child, regardless of their family’s income. We collaborate closely with families of children who require extra support, creating tailored learning plans for their success. Desert Mission’s programs allow us to provide additional wraparound services to further support the needs of students and their families.

This past year, we welcomed Governor Hobbs to Lincoln Learning Center for a tour and roundtable discussion with families, reinforcing the importance of early childhood education and family voice. We successfully completed our biannual Quality First assessment, demonstrating our continued commitment to high-quality care. We also collaborated with HonorHealth’s IT department to repurpose refurbished hospital iPads for our school-age children, expanding access to learning and homework support while reducing e-waste and saving organizational resources.

• Total number of children served: 284
• % of pre-K Graduates assessed as Kindergarten-Ready: 97% 
• 5 Star First Things First Quality First rating
  Recognized for this high achievement by significantly exceeding quality standards and high-quality practices.  
• Receiving financial assistance: 29%
• % of children assessed with learning delays: 22% 

Living Well

While our Food Bank’s role is to feed the line, Living Well aims to shorten it by addressing the root causes of food insecurity through personalized community resource navigation based on each guest’s unique needs. We provide direct connections to critical supports such as public benefits, emergency rent, utility and transportation assistance, and we extend this work to HonorHealth patients through our Social Determinants of Health initiative.

In 2025, we strengthened these efforts by expanding resource navigation services, resulting in increased CommunityCares referrals, higher SNAP and AHCCCS enrollment, and greater access to the JCL clothing closet, helping individuals and families move beyond immediate food needs toward long-term stability.

• Total guests who received resource navigation and individualized support services: 1,539 
• Number of CommunityCares referrals accepted: 842
• SNAP enrollment applications: 47

Additional Programs & Events

• Heart of Sunnyslope:
  Over 400 attendees explored local health and wellbeing vendors and resources; 164 produce bags were distributed to community members

• Back to School:
  Distributed 1,377 backpacks distributed

• Turkey Distribution:
  2,000 turkeys and Thanksgiving dinner groceries were distributed to community members in three hours
  
• Holiday Adopt a Family:
  215 families were adopted by 153 donors

Thank You to Our 2025 Corporate Donors