The senior class at Tucson's City High School mulled over a number of possibilities for a $2,000 gift before deciding to keep its charity closer to home, helping the family of a former classmate.
"Charity" is the wrong term to use in this instance, said Megan Hiestand, 17. "Charity is just signing a check and then turning your head," she said. "We're getting involved in service to the community.
"You don't have to have a lot to give, but you can give at least a few hours of your time," Hiestand said.
The 28 members of the senior class each spent a couple of hours in service last week in commemoration of Cesar Chavez Day and in support of Caitlin Sax, the former classmate whose family is moving into a mobile home where the yard needed some attention.
They hauled out trash and pulled weeds, swept, raked and hoed. When they were done, they presented the family with a check for $2,000, which had been anonymously donated by a supporter of the school who asked that the students choose its recipient.
Megon Sax, mother of Caitlin and six other children in a blended family, was grateful but not surprised by the students' efforts.
"They've just been amazingly supportive throughout," she said.
When Caitlin, now 18, attended City High, the students and staff were attentive to her constant need to monitor her blood-sugar levels and organized a team to walk with her in a fundraising drive for diabetes, Megon Sax said.
Caitlin was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 10 years old and gives herself insulin injections five times a day.
"I loved City High," she said. "I had a hard time there with my blood sugar, but they were always supportive."
She has been hospitalized five times in the past year, but she said it always came about as the result of other illnesses, not from trouble controlling her blood sugar. "It's not as hard as it used to be," she said.
Caitlin said she has things under control now. She passed her high school equivalency exam and plans to attend Pima Community College on her path to a teaching degree and a career in early-childhood education.
She already is working with little brother John, teaching him sign language, a skill she picked up as an interpreter in her elementary school years at Miles Exploratory Learning Center.
John, 4, has his own problems. Born premature and lacking parts of his colon and intestines, he has been hospitalized several times for blockages, most recently at Christmastime last year.
The check and the help will come in handy, Megon Sax said. "Between the two kids being in and out of the hospital, trying to work and get the other kids to school, this is a huge, huge help," she said.
The students spent a month nominating and promoting charities, teacher Charles Schnarr said. Many of their suggestions sprang from personal attachments. Shannon Harding, 18, suggested Pima Computer Recycling, which safely recycles hazardous parts and builds computers for people who "can't afford the prices at Best Buy." Harding said he worked there through City High's internship program.
Mara Balfe, 17, said the group considered a number of "ideas for where the money would go - the Arizona School for the Deaf and the Blind, Homicide Survivors, an art school - but when I heard about this family, I was more than happy with the choice."
Katy Galaz, 18, said she nominated the Saxes because she knew them well and knew they could use the money. She is Caitlin's best friend. She thought it would be difficult, competing with all those good programs, "but it really wasn't. I didn't have to make an argument. I just explained the situation."
Hiestand said the process definitely led to the right decision, and she even professed to having fun while sitting in a gravel yard, picking weeds.
"This is what City High is all about," she said. "Getting you out of the classroom and into the community instead of sitting in a fusty old room."
E-mail Tom Beal at tbeal(at)azstarnet.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
Must credit Arizona Daily Star
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