Patty Popp looked after four children, along with her two daughters, at her small home day care while her husband worked in commercial printing.
Still, the family was living paycheck to paycheck. Popp had worked in veterinary radiology before she moved to Tucson and started a family, so she decided to attend Pima Community College to earn an associate’s degree in radiologic technology.
There was one problem. She didn’t know how she was going to pay for it. Then she learned about Arizona Jobpath, which helps people earning minimum wage get an education and become skilled workers in various fields.
That was 17 years ago. Today Popp is director of clinical operations for Radiology Limited in Tucson.
“The big part of the success I had was because I had Jobpath,” she said.
The Pima County Interfaith Council launched Jobpath in 1998. The program offers job training, matches students with scholarships to community college and places students in apprenticeships in the fields they hope to enter.
Popp graduated from Jobpath in 2001. She said one of the most important things she learned was how to be a productive employee. For her, that’s a key strength of the program — it teaches technical skills along with “soft skills” that help graduates succeed out in the workforce.
“The college teaches you the technical part of it,” she said, “Jobpath teaches you the human part of it.”
Jobpath receives money through various grants and donations, but much of its funding comes from Pima County and the city of Tucson. In June, the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved $500,000 for the program, a big boost in funds meant to help more people like Popp.
Bruce Dusenberry, a Jobpath board member who is manager of Horizon Moving Group, said that’s the most money the program has received from the county since its inception.
The county “put in more funding this year with the specific requirement that we serve 26 more students than we did last year,” Dusenberry said. “We also have city funding to help out the students.”
During the 2014-15 school year, the program supported 225 students, Dusenberry said. Students can receive financial assistance for school as well as for everyday needs, which was a big help for Popp while she earned her degree.
Child care was a serious challenge Popp faced while she was in school — her youngest daughter was only in first grade at the time. The program helped with child-care expenses and provided gas cards to help her get her kids to school.
“Helping pay for child care, that was huge,” Popp said, and “the gas cards, it all adds up.”
Beyond helping each participant, the program pumps money into the local economy as students find work in their chosen fields.
Last year, 72 Jobpath graduates measured in an economic impact report by Applied Economics earned $2.9 million.
Jobpath graduates find work in a variety of professions. Students meet in monthly support groups focused on the professions students want to pursue.
Last year’s graduates went into radiology and law enforcement, among other fields.
“The students support each other and the staff supports the students,” Dusenberry said. “It’s like giving them a family of people with the same objectives and challenges.”
For Popp, support from the program helped her reach the position she holds today.
Looking back on her own Jobpath experience, she said the value of her education helped her entire family — she was able to give her daughters a college education.
“It’s going to be a generational impact,” she said. “It’s not just those students who went through Jobpath, but it’s also their children who have witnessed them going through school and seeing them go through successes.
“It’s not just this one person, it’s their entire family, just like it was for me.”
