5 Tucson kids who make us optimistic about the future 🌟

Kindness counts for this Tucson fourth-grader

Editor's note: This is the first in our series about young Tucsonans who make us optimistic about the future. 

To increase epilepsy awareness among his football teammates, fourth-grader Marcus Devoy strung football-shaped beads on the purple-and-white bracelets his family makes.

The family has been beading and handing out these bracelets in honor of Marcus’ sister Jade Devoy for a few years now. Jade, 13, is at the cognitive level of a 7- or 8-year-old, Marcus’ mom Jessica Devoy said.

Jade’s diagnosis includes epilepsy and intellectual disability, but her epilepsy is hard to control, Jessica said.

She added that Marcus, the youngest of three, often acts like the older brother to his sister.

He helps her with homework and making her lunch. When she has seizures, he doesn’t panic. And his teachers see the result of that.

“He’s very kind in the sense that if he knows the answer, he’ll say ‘Let’s figure it out together,’” his fourth-grade teacher Lucy Popson said. “He might be tapping his leg because he knows, but he doesn’t rush his buddy. He has that patience. And he’s a good teacher, too.”

What he does:

At J. Robert Hendricks Elementary School, Marcus, 9, rakes in the awards — Student of the Month, Peer Appreciation, Gold Honor Roll.

Popson said he is the only student in her class who participates in the gifted education program, Center for Academically Talented Students (C.A.T.S.). That class meets about once a week, often doing creative projects and fun field trips. But Marcus never brags to his classmates, Popson said.

He has also done presentations on epilepsy for his third and fourth grade classes, plus his C.A.T.S. class.

He wants to spread awareness about the neurological disorder so people know “it’s OK to be different,” he said.

For several years before Jade left Hendricks for middle school, Marcus and his family encouraged the whole school to wear purple — the color affiliated with epilepsy awareness — on a designated day. Many participated.

When Marcus decided to make bracelets for his football team, he knew he needed to make the purple-and-white bracelets more appealing for his teammates. That’s why he incorporated beads shaped like footballs and in their team colors.

He has been playing football for about four years with the Marana Broncos through the Tucson Youth Football and Spirit Federation and has won Scholastic Awards two years in a row.

Why it matters:

Popson said she pairs stronger students like Marcus with kids who might need a bit more help.

At home, Marcus has learned to be patient with kids who may have special needs or different learning styles.

“I’m patient with (Jade) because I know it’s hard for her to understand sometimes,” he said. “I understand other kids because I’m so used to being around Jade.”

He gets that misunderstanding isn’t on purpose. Sometimes it can’t be helped.

That’s why he and his family are making bracelets and encouraging people to donate to or learn more through the Epilepsy Foundation of Arizona. Marcus wants other kids to understand what he has learned.

How he would encourage his peers:

“Other kids should be kind because when you say something mean to a person, it gets them down,” he said. “‘I don’t want to hang out with you or play with you or you can’t join us,’ — it gets a person down. And it’s just sad to see that, or it’s sad to be that person. So you should always to say nice things to people or be nice to people because then they feel better inside.”

She leads the robotics team for Vail schools

The first time Trinity Peters saw the 1828 BoxerBots compete, she knew she wanted to join the team.

She was 7 at the time.

Peters, 18, is now captain of the BoxerBots, the robotics team for Vail School District.

Peters, a senior at Empire High School, is in her second year as captain and fifth year on the team. She joined in eighth grade.

“One of the most amazing things about Trinity is how well she runs our robotics club,” says Empire High School chemistry teacher Hillary Ward. “She has taken that leadership position and extended the club to the larger community. She does speaking events, for example, going to speak at Raytheon to get them to donate funds. She looks for outreach events to take robots to let other people try.”

What she does

Peters said BoxerBots meets twice a week from July to December. Starting in January, they have six weeks to build, program and wire a robot for competition. In 2015, the Vail team won state.

This year, the team has more than 40 students, each in specialized teams such as building, media and business. Peters oversees all of them.

The team does outreach in elementary and middle schools and works with other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) clubs and camps.

For the last two summers, Peters has also worked with the Youth Engaged Stewardship program, restoring and preserving the Cienega Watershed.

She wants to put her passion for math, science and the environment into studying environmental engineering. The robotics team promotes “varsity engineering.” Peters already has her letter jacket.

Why it matters

Peters envisions using her STEM skills to teach others, particularly those in lower socioeconomic situations, about environmental issues and how to address them.

“I would want to help with working towards providing better quality education (to include STEM programs I was fortunate to be part of) to students living in impoverished areas, so they can achieve their goals in the future,” she said.

Or maybe she’ll just run for president. She hasn’t ruled that out yet.

Peters has also taken an interest in encouraging other girls to pursue STEM careers.

Girls make up about one-third of the robotics club. Peters would like to see that rise to 50 percent.

“I have seen that a lot of her peers are outwardly excited about science, especially the girls,” Ward said. “It’s really cool to see that (A) being a nerd is cool, and (B) being in robotics and doing coding is all of a sudden cool among these girls.”

How she would encourage her peers

Peters said she struggles with anxiety, but that hasn’t stopped her.

Those personal challenges — and the challenges inherent in math and science — make her a better problem solver and critical thinker.

“The challenges of (STEM) might seem difficult, but they are needed to advance in society and progress our current society to a better future,” she said. “STEM helps you with that.”

This Tucson teen takes every opportunity to volunteer

Adriana Noriega was sitting in her Western civilizations class listening to a guest presenter discuss volunteering when everything changed.

Before that presentation her freshman year of high school, she’d never given much thought to serving her community. Hearing about issues in Pima County, and specifically the county’s Teen Court program, sparked a realization.

“It never snapped in my mind that I have the ability to help someone’s life and contribute to society, so I started volunteering then,” said Adriana, 16.

Now a junior at Cholla High Magnet School, Adriana takes as many opportunities to volunteer as she can. She’s passionate about substance-abuse prevention, education and helping refugees in Tucson.

“When I see people who are giving as much as they can because they want to help, that helps me want to do the same thing, maybe not with all of my money, because I don’t have any, but with my time,” she said. “Time is one of the most valuable things you have, and it’s also one of the most valuable things you can give, so I want to give my time and invest in people’s lives.”

And time is precious to Adriana. In the midst of volunteering, she also juggles student council, the Arabic and National honor societies and all of the rigor that accompanies an International Baccalaureate program. She doesn’t just care about her own education. She’s also part of the Metropolitan Education Commission’s Youth Advisory Council/Tucson Teen Congress, representing her peers in discussions on education policy and quality in Pima County.

She dreams of making policies some day.

“I wasn’t aware of the issues,” she said. “I was so close-minded and didn’t see the bigger picture. I was just focusing on my school and I wanted to get good grades, and I never realized how much of an impact I could have.”

What she does

Adriana started volunteering with Pima County Teen Court, a diversion program for minors, after that freshman year presentation.

The program allows minors who take responsibility for their offenses to let a jury of their peers determine their sentences. This alternative to a criminal conviction focuses on constructive sentences and service learning. Teens volunteer as members of the jury, attorneys, clerks and bailiffs.

Adriana, who volunteers as a teen attorney and vice president of the Teen Court Bar Association, had noticed many of the teens coming through the program had some involvement with substance abuse. “I saw how substance abuse affected them,” she said. “It practically destroys lives.”

That realization drove her to apply to the Governor’s Youth Commission, where she is one of two teens from Pima County. There, and through organizations on campus and in the community, she advocates for greater awareness among teens about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

Her openness to new ways of volunteering also led her to bake sales organized by Syrian refugee women last winter. Her high school Arabic teacher, Nour Jandali, invited her to help translate.

“When I was getting ready to leave (the bake sale), she was in the room where all of the volunteers met, taking the stage to explain how we can do new events better,” Jandali said .

Again, Adriana found her eyes opened.

“When I was speaking with the Syrian refugees, it was very surreal,” Adriana said. “I’ve heard about it before, all the problems they’re going through ... and being able to speak to someone who has been going through this their whole life really made me want to give back more.”

She was already interested in the Middle East because of an older sister who took Arabic in high school. Biblical references in church to Middle Eastern locales also piqued her interest.

Before the bake sales, Adriana had applied for the YALLAH Commit to Action program organized by the Qatar Foundation International, an organization that awarded the Tucson Unified School District grant money to expand Arabic programs to other schools.

As part of the Commit to Action program, she developed a project to support the education of Syrian refugee children. In Tucson, she collected school supplies and more than $300 to purchase education necessities. She donated all of it to the local resettlement agency Refugee Focus.

Because of that project, she was selected to attend the National Youth Leadership Council’s Dare to Dream service-learning conference in California in March and another leadership conference in Qatar .

Why it matters

For Adriana, it’s about taking what she has and sharing it with others.

“Being so privileged, I kind of think of it as ‘Why not?’” she said. “After I started volunteering and looking at the bigger picture, I saw that I can have an impact on someone’s life. I can make a change, and it starts with one person.”

Jandali said Adriana also encourages her peers to volunteer.

“She is one of those kids who will take a risk and be in front and take that job and complete it until it is done well,” Jandali said.

Encouraging peers

“Just do it,” she said. “There is going to be something eventually that you’re going to be passionate about. ... For me, I didn’t even know I was passionate about substance-abuse prevention until I realized there were people going through bad things. When you see problems like that and are genuinely interested in wanting to help, you should just take the opportunity.

“There is no age to start giving back to the community. You can start doing that at 6 years old if you want. There are always ways to give back to the community.”

This fifth-grader raised raised about $6000 for homeless women

It started as a holiday project last year.

Noah Al-ghaith went door-to-door collecting money so he could gift the women at Sister Jose Women’s Center with hygiene products.

What began as a quest to buy nice soaps and shampoos for homeless women quickly morphed into months of work and around $6,000.

What he did:

Noah, 10, and his mom Valerie Al-ghaith spent the first part of the year driving all over Tucson to collect money on behalf of the women’s center.

By late spring, they were able to purchase five to six months worth of Arbonne shampoo, conditioner and body wash sets, plus some deodorant and body sprays. They also threw in some protein shakes, Valerie said.

They toured the shelter last year as part of Valerie’s efforts to teach her kids about giving back to the community.

After seeing the homeless women at the shelter, she asked Noah what he thought they could do for the women.

The fundraiser for hygiene products was Noah’s idea.

“I felt a little sad because they didn’t have the best stuff,” said Noah, a fifth-grader at Mesquite Elementary School.

“This was just supposed to be for (last) December, but he wanted to do more,” Valerie said. “He said, ‘I think we can do better and get more for them.’”

Noah estimated that they spent about six hours on weekends and three or four hours over the course of weekdays going door-to-door when he wasn’t at school, student council or soccer practice.

Why it matters:

In April, the shelter moved from a 750-square-foot house to a 9,000-square-foot building at 1050 S. Park Ave. That means the shelter can now serve about 100 women a day, said executive director Jean Fedigan.

“We allow the women to take a shower, and of course most of the time they don’t have shampoo or conditioner or body lotion or any of that, so having a supply here to help them makes them feel human again,” Fedigan said.

That was Noah’s observation when he and his mom toured the shelter — he thought the women should have high-end hygiene products, not just cheap scraps and leftovers.

“We wanted to make them feel worthy, that they are important and deserve quality products just like everyone else,” Valerie said.

How he would encourage his peers:

When the family delivered the supplies, the women “were all thanking me for stuff,” Noah said. “It felt good for all the hard work.”

Plus he got a robot — a reward from his mom. Not a bad deal.

“It made me feel happy to help homeless people, because they don’t have the best stuff (and) because it makes them feel happy and good,” he said.

This young cafeteria worker always serves up a smile

Nicole McManus dreams of working with plants some day.

But for now, the shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes in the Flowing Wells High School cafeteria will have to do.

McManus, 20, graduated from the school in 2015 and stayed on as a cafeteria worker, where she has a reputation for serving smiles along with salads.

What she does

“She was always a friend to someone in our class if they drove a wheelchair or was blind,” said life skills teacher Mimi Lawton. “She was the first to say, ‘I can help.’”

McManus served her classmates while living with a brain injury of her own.

That didn’t stop her from competing with the high school’s Special Olympics team or working as the team manager for the school’s tennis squad. Her love of growing things compelled her to join Future Farmers of America and she never missed class, Lawton said.

“She did all of these things on her own and would just come and say, ‘I’m going to do this,’ in spite of having a different way of learning,” Lawton said.

Why it matters

McManus’ persistence and kindness are examples for all students.

“I help others,” she said. “If they don’t know how to do something, I’ll help them.”

Every day, McManus bikes to work. For the last several years, she has also volunteered at Flowing Wells Library, which is currently closed for expansion.

“That’s what we hope for students in life skills, that they are employed and that they are happy.” Lawton said. “And Nicole stayed in our own community. She works at the school she went to and gets to and from work independently on her bike. She doesn’t rely on a parent to drive her.”

McManus is dependable, Lawton added. And that counts for a lot.

Encouraging peers

“Just be nice and help other people out,” Lawton said.

It’s that simple.