| Arizona Western College (AWC) is located in the southwest quadrant of Arizona in Yuma and serves the counties of Yuma and La Paz. It also serves students from California and Mexico who live within a 75-mile radius of the campus as if they were Arizona residents. Sharing its campus with the University of Northern Arizona at Yuma, AWC provides for the higher education needs of a mostly Hispanic, largely rural and economically depressed population whose access to higher education is severely restricted due to geographic, socioeconomic, and academic barriers.
Using their Hispanic-Serving Institutions Assisting Communities grant, AWC will acquire and renovate property to support the Community Development Block Grant funded Carver Park Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy in Yuma. The renovated property will serve as a community learning center that provides local residents with training and education opportunities targeted to increase their employability and earning capacity.
The area receiving AWC's assistance is the Carver Park Neighborhood is a contiguous twenty-two-block area covering one-half square mile in Yuma. The neighborhood is home to 2,042 residents, 18 businesses, and a variety of religious and non-profit entities. Within its boundaries are two valuable public facilities: Carver Park and Carver Elementary School. The Carver Park neighborhood is ethnically rich, socially diverse and is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Yuma. The 1990 poverty rate for the area was 48 percent, three times higher than that of Yuma overall, with nearly 78 percent of the population having low or moderate incomes.
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