BIO ~ Jeff Grobe
Executive Director, Coyote TaskForce (Our Place Clubhouse, Café 54, Rethreads)
Mr. Grobe currently serves as the Executive Director of Coyote TaskForce (CTF), a non-profit organization in downtown Tucson that operates Café 54, Our Place Clubhouse and Re-Threads thrift store—programs whose guiding principle is that work and meaningful community engagement can be primary pathways for recovery from mental illness and substance use.
CTF was founded in 1992 with a mission to provide high quality employment services, public awareness, and advocacy for adults living with serious mental illness.
Mr. Grobe has been serving the Tucson community for over 16 years, always with a focus on providing support, advocacy and recovery-focused services for some of the most disadvantaged populations in the community.
He considers his current work with Coyote TaskForce to be his most rewarding and positively impactful on the community he calls home.
Website: https://www.ourplaceclubhouse.org/
BIO ~ Jennifer Tersigni
Owner of Raise The Bar Consulting
Jennifer is the founder of Raise the Bar Consulting, and currently serves as the Interim CEO at Mobile Meals of Southern Arizona. Jennifer started Raise the Bar in 2009 to help organizations spark growth and transformation through better fundraising, organizational development, strategic consulting, and transitional executive leadership solutions.
Raise the Bar has raised more than $350 million for clients, helping more than 200 clients stabilize, grow, and flourish.
Founded in 1970, MMSA delivers special diet, and regular diet meals to people in need throughout Pima County via our network of trained and caring volunteers. We deliver nourishment as well as friendly visits, socialization, and enhanced community support to people who need it most. In July 2023, we opened the MMSA Kitchen, where we now produce and source most of the meals we deliver daily. Folks can go to our website, enroll, and begin receiving meals in just 3 days! Each meal costs just $5. Clients can order as much quantity as they would like, choose their days of delivery, and choose their meals and diet types.
We offer the following diet options: regular, diabetic, cardiac, low-gluten, dairy-free, low-sodium, renal, vegetarian, pureed, and soft diets. Our meals are great for seniors, people living with disabilities, working families, and people battling chronic illnesses such as diabetes, stroke, cardiac and respiratory distress, renal failure, HIV/AIDS, cancer, mental health issues, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. For some clients, our meals are a lifeline for independence, for others, our low-cost meals help them to stretch their household resources even further.
Website: www.MobileMealsSoAz.org
LinkedIn: Mobile Meals of Southern Arizona https://www.linkedin.com/company/mobile-meals-of-tucson-inc/
Barbara McClure, Executive Director 
IMPACT of Southern Arizona
3535 E Hawser Street
Tucson, AZ 85739
Phone: 520-825-0009
barbara@impactsoaz.org
www.impactsoaz.org
SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter |
Barbara McClure wakes up each morning passionate about going to work at a place that improves lives and inspires futures every day! She has been the Executive Director of a Tucson social service nonprofit called IMPACT of Southern Arizona, for ten years. What is it that keeps you passionate about your role Barbara?
Barbara has been a visionary and planner with decades of experience as a small business owner and in nonprofit leadership; her innovative ideas and strategic thinking, along with a talent for bringing the community together, has helped grow IMPACT five-fold in a very short time. Her talents and interests are diverse but all center around helping people, improving the community, bolstering education, building capacity and sustainability, being vocal about the rights and conditions of others, experiencing art, nurturing all inhabitants of your garden, and enjoying life to the fullest.
And now Barbara is about to experience another exciting chapter in her life with hosting a brand-new Radio Show Podcast here on the Tucson Business RadioX Network starting in November.
IMPACT of Southern Arizona is a 20 – year old social service nonprofit stabilizing families and seniors, and moving people out of poverty. IMPACT’s programs are designed to stretch household budgets so earned income can be spent on necessities such as improved housing conditions, fuel to get to work, utilizes, and needed medical attention and prescriptions. Its clients are your neighbors! People come to IMPACT because it is a welcoming place where they are always treated with dignity and respect, and where they find resources, referrals, coaching, and help to attain the skills that can move them forward into self-sufficiency.
Barbara grew up in Pasadena CA, moved to Long Beach for college, got married and started our family then moved to Seattle area ten years later. Took our youngest son on an 11-month motorhome trip to get to Tucson – Homeschooled for 10th grade.
We vacationed at a rustic cabin when I was growing up, where we had no phone or television; and spent all our time outside fishing, hiking, horseback riding, listening to old radio shows, playing pool, reading comic books from the local small grocer, and using our imaginations all day long. I always admired the superheroes who defended people and cities like Gotham and Metropolis, so when our three boys were born, we named them after familiar character: Colin (Bryce for an overlay of Bruce Wayne, Kent, and Parker. Our first grandchild was born last year, and as in the family tradition, named Logan, after the Wolverine. I used to always tell them they were my superheroes – and they still are today!
Barbara loves working with numbers and has always loved math and the organization of things, so accounting seemed perfect, but I soon realized that I if I became a CPA I would have to spend many months inside doing tax returns, and that did not appeal to me as a long–term career! I have a great imagination and enjoy creating things, so thought I should find a better path that might nurture that side of my personality. I was working in the shipping industry in SoCal at the time and fell in love with import and export, so shifted my majors to Marketing and International Business. Those were wonderful fits, and I imagined graduating and moving to the largest port on the planet, in Germany; then, I met my future husband and things took a different turn.
A little bit about how Barbara got into Nonprofit work:
All along with my husband and I were always involved in nonprofits and community volunteer opportunities, and often said it was too bad we could not make a living doing those things we loved so much. Leadership roles in PTO, Boy Scouts, Historical Societies, Junior League, Elks, Rotary and more. Then when we moved to Tucson I looked for a local opportunity to impact my community. A Board position was about to open at IMPACT, and my local bank branch manager, Peggy Smoot, suggested I would be very passionate about getting involved in the mission work there. I worked in the Food Bank.
There are thousands of nonprofits in Tucson. What makes IMPACT Unique is that they bring the community together to stabilize families and move people out of poverty. Our true success lies in partnering with a large number of businesses, agencies, social clubs and other nonprofits. We invest $2.5 million in the community each year, and we do it all with a lean staff of amazing professionals supported by more than 170 volunteer shifts each week! We have put great systems in place to run efficiently, effectively and with a commitment to sustainability and integrity, protecting the community’s investment in our work, striving for perfect audits, being innovative, building capacity and most importantly – treating everyone with dignity and respect. We are an award-winning nonprofit with numerous nods to incredible customer service. Our clients are your neighbors… We improve lives and inspire futures of people living in Southern AZ.
So, IMPACT is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and you have been at the helm half that time. Share with me the things IMPACT has accomplished over the years, and the things you have planned for this celebratory year.
