life-changing services for homeless youth 24 hours a day at virtually every street corner in Southern Nevada. NPHY’s wraparound programs stabilize young people’s lives, meeting their immediate needs and providing a safe, supportive environment and a path to self-sufficiency. NPHY’s individualized, holistic services empower young people to not only achieve long-term independence, but to craft the futures they want for themselves. Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth (NPHY) began in 2000 as a group of community members fighting legal barriers that were preventing homeless youth from accessing life-saving services

​NPHY falls under UUCLV's 2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations 

https://nphy.org/ 

Read about other charities we support here.

Pastor AJ Blackwood is a Southern California native and holds a Master of Divinity from Claremont School of Theology and a Bachelor of Art in Philosophy with a minor in Comparative Religions from the University of California, Irvine. AJ was raised in a Roman Catholic home with a strong Baptist influence in Anaheim, California.  It is here that he first realized he had a call to ministry.

In 2008, AJ took up the call to be a leader in the No on Prop 8 Campaign, later became a founding board member of the Orange County Equality Coalition and in 2010 developed Progressive Interfaith Alliance a community organization that works toward justice for underrepresented peoples.

On a personal side, Pastor AJ is engaged to Denard Thomas, he has two adult children Naomi-Rose and Jon-Luc who live in SoCal and furry baby Olympia Brown, a chocolate lab. Pastor AJ enjoys bicycling, sci-fi and fantasy TV and movies, sewing, and lively debates over politics, theology, and justice.