Mark Richard announced information about the mariachi benefit concert to help stamp out polio worldwide and thanked sponsors of the event, The Daily Press, WNMU, Datura Day Spa, Terrazas Funeral Chapels, Bobby Carrillo, Buffalo Bud, Q’s Bistro, Ray Goellner, Art Thorn, and Sunny Kellerman. He has flyers and tickets available and asks that everyone in the club buy at
least two tickets since it is a club event.
Jim Callender made an announcement on behalf of the GRMC hospital foundation about the fundraiser being held on October 25 at the Murray Hotel. There will be a silent auction, dinner,
and the program will be a nationally known psychic, who will do an hour and a half reading of the room. It is a BYOB event. Tickets are $35.
Tom Bates said that he and Jim would be shopping for 

hygiene supplies for the schools this Friday at noon at
Walmart and invited other Rotarians to help with the shopping and delivering of these supplies.
Also, he invited anyone who might want to go to the Bi-District Conference in Juarez the 14th-16th of November to carpool with him. In addition, this Saturday he is leading a tour in Palomas
including shopping, the refugee center, the orphanage etc. at 1:30 pm and invited whoever wanted to join him.
Carlos had a couple of announcements from Art Thorn, who was out of town. Next week there will be a club assembly and a couple of things he wants to talk about: the social event that was
held at Scott Park and the possibility of having one of our meetings as a social event each month; and the special projects committee will have some information to be reviewed about potential projects.

Happy Dollars: 

Jim gave a shout out to Ray Goellner who was back after a major health problem. This was applauded by all.

 

Program: 

Carlos introduced Christina Wilford Castillo, executive director of SPIN, to talk about the SPIN program. She invited Silver Tabor, behavioral health specialist and a community support worker, and RaGina Shaw, social worker intern and a certified community support worker, to join her in the presentation. Most people know SPIN as being a homeless shelter, which is true, but their services extend beyond that . They house a very diverse population and a lot are seniors who are unable to live alone anymore. Their mission is to serve people who have disabilities and can’t care for themselves. They serve some of the most difficult populations to work with; those with addictions and mental health issues. They have 34 certified peer and community support workers who work across Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties. Peer support workers are people who have
recovered from some type of mental illness or substance use and have been in sobriety or in recovery for three years. She discussed the 2024 point-in-time report that counts the sheltered
and unsheltered homeless in the community. They counted 87 unsheltered homeless, but Christina feels it is a very inaccurate number since the number of homeless in the shelter could
not be counted, which was 55 that night. There are a lot who are not counted because they are couch surfing or staying with family members or in jail. In the winter they average about 45
people in the shelter each night, in the summer about 25. They helped about 200 people with rental assistance last year and even more this year. Two-thirds of all homeless are single adults
and the remaining third are families or youth. Most homelessness self-resolves within a few weeks or days. About sixteen percent are chronically homeless nationwide.

SPIN is funded by Single Socks, the Commons, United Way, Medicaid and others. They also partner with HMS. She discussed several programs and classes. They also serve two meals a day, have a clothing and shoes closet, case management, therapeutic services and life skills classes. About sixty-five percent of people who stay at the shelter make use of these services.
They have recovery housing, a house for men with nine beds and a house for women with six beds . They have about eighty percent success rate and there is a waiting list. Soon there will
be permanent supportive housing which is housing units built specifically to house the more difficult to house population. There will be 31 units with 24-hour staff. It will be located near Tu
Casa off the 32nd Street Bypass. Groundbreaking will probably be in spring of 2025.

Silver Taber joined the discussion explaining some of the programs/classes to prepare individuals to transition back into the community and be successful.

After a question and answer period, Carlos gave Christina a thank-you gift, and the meeting was adjourned.