Come and celebrate the 20th anniversary birthday of SBCO

Nan Nasser

You are invited to the celebration of SaddleBrooke Community Outreach’s 20 years of providing services to youngsters in a 100-mile service area. This party will take place on Tuesday, April 18, in the MountainView Country Club ballroom beginning at 3:00 p.m. There will be refreshments, cash bar, door prizes, balloons, displays, along with the opportunity to visit our history table, watch an ongoing video and reminisce about the wonderful programs we have developed to provide opportunities for our kids to succeed! This is open to the public with no RSVPs required. Just come to MVCC, join the fun and learn more about SBCO. You can visit with our volunteers, ask questions, enjoy the fun and go away with a smile and a knowledge of just what SBCO can do.

SBCO was established in 1997 with the initial intent of providing clothing to eligible children in the Tri Community area so that they could attend school on a regular basis. That area included Mammoth, San Manuel and Oracle, all towns and families that strongly relied on the copper industry for employment.

When the BHP Copper Mine closed in 1999 over 2,000 people lost their jobs. Helping the children remained a priority for SBCO. That resulted in adding education and nutrition programs to the clothing program called Kids’ Closet. Today we provide scholarships for higher education to teens in our service area and underwrite enrichment programs for additional youngsters. Nutrition was addressed, and we host an annual food drive in SaddleBrooke to support the Tri Community Food Bank along with a summer food program and regular monetary donations to TCFB. We even started a clothing program for area high school students called Teen Closet to assist with providing clothes appropriate of classroom attendance.

Initially Kids’ Closet operated in San Manuel and then moved to Mammoth where every child was in need of clothing. Youngsters from Oracle were added, and the service area moved from Tri Community to include Catalina, Winkelman, Dudleyville, Superior, Miami and the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. A few years ago we were able to establish our own Kids’ Closet in Mammoth, that big red building on Highway 77.

Why is this special? SBCO is 100% volunteer occupying Suite L in the SB commercial center. Developer Ed Robson helped us secure that office and for years worked with us to accept shipments for Kids’ Closet to be housed in the model homes garages. All of our proceeds go to our programs with great gratitude to the support of the Golden Goose Thrift Shop.

Come celebrate with us in April! No cost and much fun.