Study for spelling test, check; finish math problems, check; apply for $425,000 grant, check. Students from Mission View and Ochoa Elementary schools asked Pima County for money to replace playground equipment and make other improvements to the playgrounds at the schools, said Gloria Hamelitz, director of the John Valenzuela Youth Center.
The grant money would come from Pima County’s Neighborhood Reinvestment
Program. The funding would turn the school playgrounds into public
parks and would be available to the entire community during non-school
hours.
The project originally started through work with the South Tucson
Prevention Coalition as a way of “creating healthier communities and
other alternatives to delay the onset of drug use,” Hamelitz said. The
project came at the time when Ochoa was facing possible closure.
What makes this project special, is that it was driven by the children. “We can fight for something we really want,” said Natalie Urrea, an 11-year-old fifth-grader at Ochoa. “It’s not just for me, but for all my peers and all the kids.”
Throughout the process the kids evaluated the current equipment, interviewed friends and community members for input on the parks, collected more than 800 signatures, worked within a budget, learned organizational skills, leadership skills and became engaged in their government, Hamelitz reported.
According to the proposal submitted to the county, some of the requests the kids made included: shaded playground structures, a rock climbing wall, field improvements for organized sports and a community garden to “encourage healthy eating.”
All their choices promote a healthy lifestyle and will have amenities for children and adults, Hamelitz said.
“This project was really youth led and adult guided,” Hamelitz said. “Whether or not we get funded I think that some of the most important lessons were actually already created.”
According to Hamelitz, the grant cannot be applied for by a specific agency, but rather by the residents of the community. Although the youth center is a formal agency, they applied on behalf of South Tucson’s young. The center acted as a liaison to help coordinate the process for the kids.
About a dozen kids and a handful of puppets made a presentation to the county’s oversight committee, said Liz Murrieta Hoover, guidance counselor at Mission View Elementary School. She said she was proud of the work the children had done and said the group is now referred to as the “Dream Team.”
“The work came from who it should have come from, the kids,” said Heidi Aranda, principal at Ochoa Elementary School. “It’s so important for our kids to participate in the democratic process and they have no idea what power they have, that they really can affect things in the community. This is a lesson that I hope lives with them forever.”
Antonio Valenzuela, a 10-year-old at Ochoa seems to have learned the lesson. “Throughout this process we learned leadership. We learned that happy people are healthy people,” Valenzuela said.
He said he studies differently now and has aspirations to run for student council in both middle school and high school.
South Tucson City Manager Enrique Serna said the proposal has “the strong, strong support of the mayor. He said the proposed park at Ochoa is “kind of bearing fruit now” when only two years ago they were near closure. Pima County Board of Supervisors will make their decision at the end of this month.
Construction could take between four months and two years, depending upon the vendor and the time it takes to remove the old playground equipment. If approved, construction could begin within a few months.
