To create an accessible network of human and social service organization providing programs/services empowering low-income residents to improve their quality of life.

The LaStraw, Inc. began as an all volunteer organization to identify work that needed to be done in low-income areas, to identify people in low-income areas willing to do the work that needs to be done and securing funding necessary for the work to be done to be sustained long term.

2003 - 2008

Focus: Increasing the involvement of individuals, living in economically distressed and under-resourced areas, with organizations engaged in poverty alleviating activities in their community.

2008-2012

Focus: Understanding the disconnect between activities being implemented in economically distressed and under-resourced areas and the actual needs present in these communities; creating opportunities for recipients of human and social services to set organizational priorities, developing program objectives and evaluate the outcomes of programs based on tangible, positive, productive change in their daily lives.

Effective 07/1/2012

Focus: A future where self-sufficient, sustainable communities are thriving where economically distressed communities in under-resourced areas exist today.

The LaStraw, Inc.'s platform has expanded to encapsulate raising awareness about policies contributing to conditions that perpetuating poverty rendering any work done on a community level ineffective

Human Rights, Race/Ethnicity, Homelessness and Housing, Education and Literacy. Our goal is to set an example that can be duplicated by similarly situated individuals, living in economically distressed and under-resourced areas, encourages others to concentrate on initiating forward thinking projects ultimately leading to tangible, positive, productive, impactful, sustainable changes.

Preventing the replication of possessive and dependency creating practices of traditional human and social services organizations, by creating leaders among individuals living in economically distressed and under-resourced areas

A thorough review of the resources available including human capital throughout the US and abroad and channeling those resources into the creation of a tangible presence and demonstrated measurable change in the areas where we live, work and play.

https://www.facebook.com/thelastraw.org