The Las Vegas Sands Thursday announced it is donating $300,000 to help vulnerable youth in Southern Nevada. The donation to the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth via the 2021 Sands Cares funding is part of the company’s multi-year partnership with the non-profit organization.
The Sands’ donation will be earmarked for expansion and support of key NPHY programs, resources to increase organizational capability and additional housing capacity for homeless youth. Since emphasizing youth homelessness as a primary Sands Cares initiative in 2015, the company has donated more than $1.7 million to NPHY.
“Sands has helped us grow our back-end infrastructure to sustainably support program expansion – a crucial component to successful nonprofit management that is often overlooked,” said NPHY Executive Director Arash Ghafoori in a statement. “The company has served as a true partner in the fight to end youth homelessness in Southern Nevada, not only as a donor, but as an investor and thought partner in our work to move the needle on this devastating issue in our community.”
The donation includes $100,000 designated for the NPHY Housing Expansion Campaign, which will enable the organization to offset rising real estate costs to acquire a planned transitional housing facility and help offset a shortfall in the campaign’s original funding goal. Sands previously donated $100,000 as a seed investor in NPHY’s Housing Expansion Campaign in 2019 and engaged the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation as the other seed partner with a $100,000 matching grant from the foundation to encourage the community’s participation in the capital campaign.
The remainder of the 2021 Sands Cares donation is earmarked for the production of the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit; expansion of NPHY’s nighttime staffing model for its Safe Place, emergency shelter and transitional housing programs; and infrastructure support for critical operational areas such as grants administration, finance and facilities management.
“We are deeply committed to impacting the incidence of youth homelessness in the Las Vegas Valley, and NPHY has been our strategic and valued partner in leading that charge,” said Sands Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Corporate Affairs Ron Reese. “Our continued investment is representative of the tremendous results we’ve seen NPHY achieve for our community’s vulnerable youth, as well as its leadership in developing long-term solutions to address the issue. This partnership has been one of the most impactful Sands Cares initiatives we’ve undertaken.”
