The Piñon Project on Tuesday received a donation of $23,067.99 for use in its general fund from

The donation came from a workshop facilitated by Tiospaye.

“It was an emotional intelligence workshop that was conducted over in Durango,” Geoff Byerly, fatherhood coordinator at The Piñon Project, said. “It was kind of a three-phase training; it ends in this third phase.”

After participation in the leadership workshop run by Tiospaye, the group was given a community service project.

“Part of the leadership program is a community service project, so we all met about four months ago and went through this program and spent the last month doing a community service project,” Allison James said.

The group had three weeks to complete their project. They decided to try to raise $40,000 for local charities, and three weeks later had $47,000.

“All of us were charged with going out into the community and surveying what the needs were and talking to an organization in the community,” Brittany Meyer said. “All these conversations within all of our community and based on all those conversations and what we heard, it was really clear that the youth is where people really see they need support.”

The group chose to split the funds between the La Plata Youth Services and The Piñon Project.

“To change the future, we really felt that if we could get to youth in a meaningful way, that the future can change,” James said.