Graduating fifth-graders at a school in one of Tucson's poorest areas gave a common response when asked to draw their most memorable moment of the year.
They turned in pictures of a brain, a spaceship, the solar system, a nurse and patient, and Albert Einstein. Several spelled out an acronym they'd learned - STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The artwork is testament to a citizen-school partnership at John B. Wright Elementary School in midtown Tucson that brings leading local scientists into the classroom and exposes students to real-life possibilities they wouldn't normally see. Those scientists have included an international tree-ring expert, a solar power researcher, an astronomer and a neurosurgeon.
No single person can reverse Tucson's poverty. But the visiting scientist program at Wright, spurred by one woman who decided to help, is evidence that even something that starts small can have a great impact.
It's too early to tell whether such exposure will have a lasting effect on the students. But the enthusiasm the children have for the scientists is genuine. They ask for autographs and rarely have to be told to be quiet during presentations. Their thank you notes to visitors are careful and thoughtful.
The city of Tucson has 219 mobile home parks that can hold 17,762 trailers, and many of them are near Wright Elementary. A full 98 percent of students here qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, meaning their families live in or near poverty. For some kids, meals in the cafeteria are the only food they get all day.
So many students were showing up in dirty uniforms that the school used donations to buy a stackable washer and dryer. The principal and office staffers do two to four loads of laundry per day.
A supply of donated uniforms is always on hand for students to wear while their own are being cleaned. Those uniforms also outfit kids whose parents can't afford to buy them.
Every day, a school bus picks up children from local shelters and brings them to Wright. The bus is provided through the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which ensures homeless children get to and from school.
With too-few high-paying jobs, too many fractured families and a lack of political will for change, Tucson has long been poor. The recession made life worse for our poorest residents, but even as other hard-hit areas recover, Tucson is still hurting.
Children are suffering the most. One in three kids inside city limits lives in poverty. Statewide, the rate is one in four. Nationwide, it's one in five.
Growing up poor dims kids' chances of success as adults - and having so much poverty makes it less likely Tucson can build a healthier economy. The chaos that comes with unstable housing, spotty school attendance and limited access to nutritious food and health care makes it more likely kids will grow up to be unemployed, unhealthy and in trouble with the law - in short, the responsibility of taxpayers.
The teachers at Wright Elementary, 4300 E. Linden St., are determined their students will escape that fate. And Tucson businesswoman Kathleen Perkins is there to help.
"This means more to me than just about anything," Perkins says one recent day as she looks at the fifth-grade artwork displayed in a hallwayl. "The kids have backbone, and there is a window when it can be cultivated. When the window is gone, it's over. We will lose these kids."
How they break out
One theory on poverty says there are four reasons people get out - it's too painful to stay; they have a vision or a goal; a special talent or skill offers them a way out; or they develop a "key" relationship with a relative, teacher, mentor or role model.
Adults like Perkins caring enough to show up can make a difference, says Ann Huff Stevens, director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of California-Davis.
No, a visiting scientist cannot wipe out the effects of chaotic home life. New research shows high levels of chronic stress through the early years can cause changes in the brain and nervous system that forever damage kids' ability to focus and learn.
Still, sustained contact with successful adults can show kids paths to a better life.
"I have never talked to a successful adult who escaped from the underclass who didn't say there was some caring role model person in his or her life," says Tucson resident Virginia J. Capeller, a retired social worker and professor who worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty program during the 1960s. "We never know how important we may be to someone."
rundown area of town
Perkins had no reason to get involved at Wright, really. She has no children - but does have a demanding, high-profile career. She is chair of the business advisory board at the UA's Bio5 and frequently travels to Brussels as a consultant to the European Union.
Her commute to the University of Arizona takes her south along Columbus Avenue. One day about four years ago, she noticed tricycles and children's toys outside a rundown trailer. She wondered about the kids living there, so she took a quick drive through the neighborhood.
She saw old apartments, broken and boarded-up windows, stray animals and graffiti. She also saw a school - John B. Wright - and approached officials to ask what they needed.
Once they got to know Perkins, administrators welcomed the help, developing a special focus on science and technology that they had recently begun.
Since then, Perkins has raised $82,000 for the school. Many of the scientists she's brought to visit now donate tax credits to Wright.For more information, please visit www.soli-lite.com.
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