It isn’t often that you find a free fitness class.

But the folks at the Pima County Public Library’s Sam Lena-South Tucson Branch offer Fitness for Free every Thursday from 9-10 a.m. at the library, 1607 S. Sixth Ave.

There are no membership fees for this class, which offers yoga, pilates, aerobics and more.

The class allows participants to sample different types of exercise and learn about getting and staying healthy. It is open to teens and adults.

For more information, call the library at 594-5265.

Many to participate in area’s annual walk Sunday

Alix Arnold (center, with glasses, standing) persuaded her friends to participate in the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation AIDSWALK in 2007. From left are: Kevin McClarren, Jesskah Wiggins, Alayna Flores, Amanda Finkelstein, Arnold, Sarah Collin (seated), Maxie Adler, Mike Sands, Brittney Marimow, Taylor Williams, Sam Scott and Lisa Ayers.

Alix Arnold hadn’t been born when the first wave of AIDS swept the country, but she has made it her mission to educate her friends about the disease.

The 16-year-old Ironwood Ridge High School student will participate Sunday for the third straight year in the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation AIDSWALK.

As she did in 2007, she encouraged her friends to join her.

“We are the next generation and we are going to find a cure,” Arnold said Thursday as she prepared to make T-shirts for the walk. “It’s going to be us as doctors. The earlier we get the message out, the more success we will probably have.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 55 percent of new AIDS cases are showing up in people under age 39. Fifteen percent of new cases are in people under age 24.

Arnold doesn’t know anyone who is HIV positive or has AIDS, nor does she feel as if she was taught much about the disease in school.

But she learned a lot from the education and prevention booths during her first walk and is among the growing number of young people spreading the word about AIDS to their peers.

Most teens have yet to get the message, Tucson-area educators said.

“At the high school level, there is a disconnect,” said Michele Bart, director of development for the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation. “That generation and the college generation did not go through the ’80s where they heard about it or were losing people to HIV. They don’t have the memories of that.”

Louis Ortega, the foundation’s director of prevention, said that as medical advances allow people with HIV and AIDS to live longer, society’s emphasis on the disease has changed.

“HIV and AIDS has gone back in the shadows,” he said. “It’s just not in your face any more.”

Misconceptions

Ari Kelly of the Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network said that of the young people she talks to, most have heard about HIV, but know little about it. She said they seem to believe one of two things about HIV/AIDS:

• Once a person is diagnosed, he will die quickly.

• It’s not a big deal. If you get HIV or AIDS, you just take a pill and life doesn’t change.

Neither belief is true.

Drugs are helping HIV/AIDS patients to live longer, Bart said, but they are not taking just one pill.

“They are taking a cocktail of pills and most are taken to (counteract) the side effects, because the side effects are so hard on the body,” she said.

Ortega works with at-risk youths at Tucson alternative charter high schools as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths through the Wingspan- and SAAF-sponsored Eon Youth Program. Even in those groups he has found teens who are misinformed.

“They know you can get HIV by having unprotected sex,” he said, “but we still get questions about mosquitoes and kissing.”

Some youths have no information at all.

Kelly said she recently did a presentation on HIV for a group of recent college graduates.

“You think you’re telling them the same thing they’ve heard since fifth grade,” she said.

Still, she said, after the class one person wrote her, “I learned a lot. I’ve never been taught this before.”

Education

In an effort to set the record straight, SAAF and TIHAN have established programs aimed at reaching youths with information not only about the basics of HIV and AIDS prevention, but also with information about risk and decision-making.

Programs at SAAF include HIV Youth Prevention Education, a leadership training; Eon, a lounge and support center for youth struggling with their sexual identity; and Voz, a health education program in Tucson’s charter schools. At TIHAN, Kelly runs an education program that offers seminars to area churches and their youth groups.

Over the summer about a dozen students from the Frank & Edith Morton Clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson participated in SAAF’s first leadership training, which taught them about HIV and the immune system but ultimately trained them to be peer educators.

Victoria Martins, 17, said that before she took the training she knew HIV was a sexually transmitted disease, but didn’t fully understand the consequences of having HIV or AIDS.

Martins and the others, all part of a leadership group at the club called Keystone, now put on weekly presentations for classes and other Boys & Girls Clubs members around Tucson and will participate this year in AIDSWALK as volunteers guiding walkers along the route.

Their adviser, George Yslava, 23, is a former Keystone member who said the group’s yearly projects used to focus on issues like gangs and bullying. He said he’s benefited from the group’s new focus because he didn’t hear much about AIDS while growing up.

“I’m now able to educate my mom and my family,” he said.

Daniel Jones, 16, said the training has taught him to be careful around bodily fluids, such as blood from cuts.

“I truly thought it was just sexually transmitted,” Jones said.

Jones and Martins said they don’t hear much about HIV and AIDS in the media or at school. Most of the messages they get relate to drugs and alcohol, the two said.

Health education touches briefly on sexually transmitted diseases, they said. Jones said he has heard more about herpes than HIV.

“It isn’t being taught,” Jones said. “It should be a big priority.”

Because public schools are only allowed to teach about abstinence, Bart said, some students aren’t getting the message about how to protect themselves from HIV when they decide to have sex.

When SAAF staff members talk to students in the public school system, abstinence is the one option discussed, and Bart said by not discussing safe-sex options, part of the conversation is missing.

“We have to find very creative ways about reaching out and trying to find kids who want to get this information or are at risk because of a lack of information,” Bart said.

The Boys & Girls Clubs’ presentations also have to teach just abstinence, Yslava said. However, he said they will refer the teens to SAAF for further information.

For Martins, the abstinence message combined with what she learned through the leadership class and teaching others hit home and reconfirmed what she always thought about sex.

“I’m going to be abstinent,” she said. Her education has also made her realize that her future partner may not have made the same decision. “He is going to have to answer a lot of questions,” she said.

Daniel Jones,16, left, and Ty Smith,13, finish posters for Sunday's event.

Victoria Martins,17, and George Yslava, a Boys & Girls Clubs youth development specialist, work on posters for Sunday's AIDSWALK.

Giant red ribbons stand on the UA Mall during last year's AIDSWALK.

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Averting HIV and AIDS, an international charity

www.avert.org/young.htm

A true/false quiz for teens to test their knowledge of HIV/AIDS

www.teengrowth.com/index.cfm?action=info_article&ID_article=1253

Eon Youth Program

www.wingspan.org/content/WYP.php

AIDSWALK

www.aidswalktucson.com

Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation

www.saaf.org

Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network

www.tihan.org

Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson

www.bgctuc.org

———

If you go

• What: 20th annual AIDSWALK

• Where: University of Arizona Mall. Participants are encouraged to use the Second Street or Cherry Avenue garages.

• When: Sunday; registration begins at 6:30 a.m. The 10K begins at 7 a.m. with the 5K beginning at 8:30 a.m.

• How much: Day-of-event registration is $25 for adults, $15 for youths in kindergarten to 12th grade.

———

Definition of terms related to HIV

HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus causes AIDS. HIV mostly attacks white blood cells.

AIDS: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a disease caused by HIV.

DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA.

Drug-resistant: When a drug for a specific illness is no longer effective.

AZT: The first drug approved for AIDS victims, in 1987. It is still in use, but in lower doses and in combination with other drugs.

———

About AIDSWALK

The first AIDSWALK Tucson was held in 1988. About 100-200 people showed up and raised no more than $3,000.

The walk started as a Tucson AIDS Project event. The Tucson AIDS Project eventually merged with the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation.

The event has grown each year and in 2007, 5,500 people showed up and $232,000 was raised for SAAF. Around 6,000 are expected on Sunday. All the money raised at AIDSWALK stays in Pima County to pay for services for residents with HIV and AIDS and to fund prevention programs.

On Sunday, SAAF leaders will be encouraging participants to share their story as a “video story” which will later be used online and in education programs. Access Tucson has volunteered to videotape the stories. This is the first time that SAAF will ask participants to share their stories.

Michele Bart, SAAF director of development, said prevention and education booths are always a part of the annual walk, but this year some additional booths aimed at youth will be added and prevention messages will be prominent throughout the event.

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FOR INFO

Do you have questions about HIV/AIDS?

• Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, 628-7223

• Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network, 299-6647

• Eon Youth Program, 620-6245

I was born with Down syndrome, a developmental disability in which it takes a while to process data in the mind quickly.

Having this foundation has given us blessings in giving women opportunities in becoming leaders.

The Aurora Foundation was founded by Stephanie Parker.

She has this vision in helping women, young women and girls with disabilities to become leaders.

This foundation started in May 2001. Since then, it really took off with its mission, vision and programs.

Parker created this program of leadership development and mentoring, specifically with young women and girls who have been disenfranchised and marginalized by disability and other significant life challenges.

The curriculum has been field-tested with more than 100 high school girls.

This program has integrated knowledge, skills, attitudes in healthy relationships, education, career exploration and even social entrepreneurship.

This program has helped increase self awareness and understanding in all the women, young women and girls it reaches.

It also engages future-oriented self-concepts in exploring and forming post-high school college and career goals.

This program is called Leaders for a Lifetime. It has benefited me in so many ways because I was involved with The Aurora Foundation for five years.

It really helped me in maintaining interpersonal relationships with my family and friends.

I was born with Down syndrome, a developmental disability in which it takes a while to process data in the mind quickly. It also involves health and mental health issues.

Having this foundation has given us blessings in giving women opportunities in becoming leaders.

We didn’t really have opportunities or programs for women in the ’60s. Ninety years ago, they didn’t even have the right to vote.

We’ve come a long way since then.

Angela Thomas has Down syndrome. She loves to paint, ride horses and write. She also loves her family.

Ellis

Girls whose socially dysfunctional fathers leave the family following divorce are at greater risk for early puberty, according to a study by a University of Arizona researcher.

UA professor Bruce J. Ellis and Jacqueline M. Tither of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, found girls whose dysfunctional father left their family reached puberty on average one year earlier than their older sisters who lived longer in the two-parent families.

Girls with normative fathers who left saw no significant difference to their older sisters comparing the age when they began menstruating, Ellis said.

“It’s not just about whether the father is there or not; it’s about what the father does,” said Ellis, the John and Doris Norton endowed chair in fathers, parenting and families at the UA Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“Most girls don’t live with really dysfunctional fathers. There is a small effect of a missing father,” he said. “The large effect is when we’re talking about a father that has a history of socially deviant behavior.

“Early exposure to a very stressful situation, followed by a change in the family when the stress is removed, seems to accelerate puberty,” Ellis said.

Dysfunctional behavior includes a history of suicide attempts, violent offenses or imprisonment, Ellis said.

Reaching puberty at a younger age can mean health problems for females, he said.

“A one-year advancement in the arrival of puberty increases breast cancer risk by an estimated 5 percent,” he said.

Earlier puberty also elevates the risk for mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, and increases the risk of substance abuse and childhood pregnancy, he said.

A better understanding of the factors causing earlier puberty could lead health care officials to better ways to handle such issues, he said.

Ellis and Tither studied 68 divorced families where the father left that had daughters born an average of seven years apart, he said.

They compared these families to 90 with daughters seven years apart where the mother and father remained, he said.

There is not enough information to draw conclusions about girls growing up with fathers in a single family situation, he said.

The average age of puberty worldwide, which dropped the past century, has flattened out at about age 13, except in the United States where it is still declining slightly, Ellis said.

The study appears in the September issue of Developmental Psychology.

Soon-to-be teen drivers and their parents are invited to a “Dare to Prepare” workshop from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

It will be at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave.

The workshop, by AAA Arizona, is 90 minutes long and will give parents and their children helpful information before the teens get behind the wheel of a vehicle, Michelle Donati, AAA public affairs specialist, said in a press release.

It will cover state and national statistics on teen driving, graduated driver licensing rules, state requirements for getting a permit and driver’s license, parents’ roles, what to look for in a driving school, a sample parent-teen driving agreement, tips on teaching teens to drive and other resources.

To register for the workshop, which has limited space, visit www.aaaaz.com/news/DareToPrepare.htm, e-mail jreynolds@arizona.aaa.com or call 800-352-5382 Ext. 2945.

May

There’s the jock, the geek, the heartthrob, the rebel and the beauty queen.

Describe these stereotypes to any child of the ’80s, and they’ll think you’re talking about “The Breakfast Club.”

After 23 years and the dawn of MySpace, however, the life of the teenager is getting the big screen treatment once again in the documentary “American Teen.”

Nanette Burstein’s yearlong look into the lives of five high school seniors takes place in Warsaw, Ind., where not much happens outside of basketball games and Sunday Mass. That’s when Burstein’s cameras shook things up a bit.

The five teens in the spotlight are the same ones who went to your high school, with different names, faces and T-shirts. There’s Hannah Bailey, the artistically inclined loner; Jake Tusing, the socially awkward video game enthusiast; Megan Krizmanich, local prom queen/drama queen; Colin Clemens, the driven basketball go-to guy; and, of course, Mitch Reinholt, Warsaw’s sizzling equivalent to Brad Pitt.

The year plays out in a snappy 95 minutes, highlighting the kids’ major pitfalls as well as their triumphs, turning them into a very inspirational (if heavily edited) story. The teens have more screen chemistry than most professional actors, reminding us that no matter how cheesy some of it may seem, these are real people and this is what high school is really like.

The cameras of “American Teen” managed to catch some surprisingly candid moments on tape. Several scenes of alcohol consumption, smoking and a potentially incriminating misdemeanor may leave some viewers a little shocked. However, it’s included with the intent of encompassing all aspects of teenage life, and the scenes are no doubt successful in that respect.

So, if you’re pining to relive the good ol’ years, “American Teen” is the film destined to find the teenager in you, dude.

Jensen

“American Teen” is a documentary written and directed by Nanette Burstein chronicling a diverse group of high school seniors living in the small town of Warsaw, Ind.

The film was featured at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and for good reason. “American Teen” is smart, funny and, despite what most will predict, completely realistic.

The highlight of this movie is the romance between Warsaw High’s golden boy, Mitch Reinholt, and offbeat art lover Hannah Bailey. Mitch realizes during a performance by Hannah’s band that he has never spoken to her in four years of high school, and decides to do something about it.

Scenes of Mitch and Hannah dressing in dinosaur costumes and going to parties together give viewers a hope that artsy kids and jocks can live together in peace, which is promptly crushed when Mitch breaks up with Hannah via text message after a more-than-awkward house party. See? Realistic.

Another main character, Jake Tusing, is one of those nerds who is so socially inept he has passed humorous and skipped straight to depressing. One of his wildest fantasies is that life would be more like video games, because then success would be guaranteed.

Jake meets a freshman named Jessica who has just moved to town and scores his first girlfriend. Then she cheats on him with the king of the band geeks. Ouch. No part of his character is relatable, funny or very interesting. Just sad and lonely.

“American Teen” does an amazing thing: It breaks stereotypes while stereotypical high school life is the very premise of the movie. The characters are so much more multidimensional than the jock, the princess, the art freak and the nerd. You see these kids vying for college scholarships, being diagnosed with clinical depression and commemorating the anniversary of a sister’s suicide.

A far cry from “The Breakfast Club.”

High school and college music students looking to sing in harmony are invited to join in the Arizona Youth in Harmony Festival on Sept. 6.

The event includes a daylong music workshop for students and a free evening show that is open to the public. Participants should be interested in learning and performing four-part harmony a cappella music.

The event is sponsored by Tucson Desert Harmony Chorus, Tucson Barbershop Experience Chorus and the Tucson Unified School District.

The workshop is from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with the performance at 4:30. It will be at Sahuaro High School, 545 N. Camino Seco. The $15 workshop fee includes music, lunch and a T-shirt. Registration is required by calling Jere Hill, 749-2979.

Check out the works of 26 young Tucson filmmakers Saturday at the Summer Video Shootout at The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.

The free 10 a.m. screening showcases the Pima County Public Library’s teen film project, That’s My Take 2008.

There will be a public reception for eight short films set in the library and written, produced and directed by teens this summer.

Teens worked with Pan Left Productions at the Quincie Douglas, Woods Memorial and Martha Cooper library branches to create the films.

After the show, the filmmakers will talk about their experiences.

The films can also be seen after the event at www.library.pima.gov/teenzone/art/. Call 594-5270 for more information.

Do you know a young woman who has overcome a challenge in her life?

The YWCA Bright Futures Program is seeking nominations for the free leadership development and scholarship program open to females in their senior year of high school. Applications are due Sept. 12.

Bright Futures is designed for those who are overlooked for traditional leadership development and scholarship programs, according to the YWCA. An outstanding academic record is not required.

Applicants must demonstrate a capacity for leadership by having overcome an obstacle or challenge.

Pima County high schools are eligible to nominate up to five students each. Applicants may be nominated by principals, coaches, counselors or teachers. Last year, 46 schools were represented.

Participants must have a grade point average between 1.7 and 3.2. They will attend a leadership development seminar, explore career and educational options with a female mentor and participate in workshops. Participants will be eligible for one of three $1,000 scholarships.

Application forms are available and can be submitted at www.ywcatucson.org or by calling 884-7810 Ext. 111.

The agency is also seeking mentors for the program. Call or send an e-mail (info@ywcatucson.org) for more information.

Shane Harvey was about to start his H.S. senior year

Harvey

Shane Harvey worked his last shift at Anchor Blue at Park Place on Friday afternoon,

On Saturday, the 17-year-old went back-to-school shopping at the mall, buying shoes and shirts.

On Sunday morning, the day before he was to begin his senior year of high school, he was dead.

Harvey was the only person killed in the crash of a car carrying five teenagers at about 4:25 a.m. on the Mount Lemmon Highway.

A 16-year-old girl was in the front passenger seat with the driver, 17. Three boys, all 17, were riding in the back.

One of them was Harvey.

Dawn Hanke, a Pima County Sheriff’s spokeswoman, said investigators told her speed, as well as drugs and alcohol, contributed to the crash.

She said they wouldn’t say whether drugs or alcohol were found in the vehicle.

On July 1, an Arizona law aimed at reducing the number of car accidents involving teens took effect.

It restricts teens under age 18 who have a learner’s permit from driving between midnight and 5 a.m., except to work.

The Tucson Citizen could not determine whether the driver of the car, Joseph Daniel Garcia, 17, had a learner’s permit or a regular driver’s license.

Garcia, of the 1600 block of East Camino Carreta, was in the Pima County Jail on Monday on $100,000 bail.

He was booked on suspicion of second-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault.

A female passenger, 16, and a male passenger, 17, were taken to a hospital. They have been released. The nature of their injuries could not be determined and Hanke declined to identify them.

Garcia was treated at a hospital for his injuries and arrested later Sunday, Hanke said.

She said witnesses told deputies the driver of a 1992 black Honda was speeding down the winding, mountain roadway, passing other vehicles in a no-passing zone, when he lost control of the car at mile marker 13 at about 4:25 a.m. Sunday.

The area is near Windy Point.

All of the vehicle’s occupants were students last year at Catalina Magnet High School, according to Principal Linda Patterson.

Harvey and one of the other teens were enrolled for the 2008-09 school year, she said.

Harvey was to play on the football team this year. He also was “quite a wrestler,” Patterson said.

Mauricio Vargas Barletta, a friend of Harvey’s since middle school, said in an e-mail that Harvey was “really energetic, hardly ever in a bad mood and was a very easy person to get along with. He was a lot of fun.”

Vargas Barletta, who moved from Tucson with his family in March, said Harvey “knew practically everybody at school.

“I do not really know what he wanted to do with his life after school. I just know that he was in a very good relationship with his girlfriend and it is sad to think she won’t see him again.”

Carlos Amador, a lead sales associate at Anchor Blue, worked with Harvey at the clothing shop over the last four months.

Harvey was a stocker, he said.

Amador said Harvey’s part-time job paid for improvements to his car, “his pride and joy,” a Ford Mustang.

“He was talking about getting rims,” Amador said. “He had just gotten a paint job.”

Monday would have been his first day back at work after the weekend. He was scheduled for the 4 to 10 p.m. shift, Amador said.

“He was a great kid who had a really good future ahead of him. He was playing sports, he loved his job and we loved having him here.”

Amador said Harvey also “loved shopping for clothes” and on Saturday he bought shoes and shirts for the new school year.

“It’s just not fair. He is going to be missed,” he said.

Chris Ashley, a manager at Anchor Blue, said the teen was “kind of quiet and shy” when he started working at the store but then opened up and was “a fun kind of guy who fit into our group.”

Harvey liked to talk about movies and video games with his co-workers.

“He was such a great worker. Everybody is still in a state of shock. I can’t believe it,” Ashley said.

“We were all just working with him last week. He was part of our team. Now it will be the rest of our lives without him.”

On Monday afternoon, the Harvey family set up a Shane Harvey Memorial Fun at Wells Fargo bank to help the family pay for funeral expenses, Amador said.

Garcia attended Catalina last year, Patterson said. She would not say more about him except that “our hearts certainly are with him.”

More than 100 of his schoolmates went to Harvey’s home Sunday night to offer condolences, Patterson said.

“He had a very sensitive way about him,” she said. “I just spoke to him last Tuesday. He was saying he was really happy about the opening of school and he was sure it would be a good year for him.”

Patterson said Harvey had not decided what to do after high school “but, I know he wanted to get further education.”

Counselors have been provided for students at the school, 3645 E. Pima St., to help them with their classmate’s death, Patterson said.

By David L. Teibel, Sheryl Kornman

Fourteen-year-old Jose Rincon used to squirm when his mom used his nickname in public.

“Guapo,” she would call him. The name means handsome. He thought it was embarrassing.

“I would try not to call him that at school,” his mother, Adriana Rincon, said.

Jose was killed in January when a driver police say was drunk hit him while he was on a bike ride with a friend.

The road where Jose learned to ride a bike – Jones Boulevard – is set to be renamed Guapo Way in his honor.

“I can see him in heaven right now, saying ‘Oh my God, how embarrassing,’ ” Adriana Rincon said. “I’m sorry. It just gives us so much pride.”

Although brimming with motherly pride, Adriana Rincon didn’t come up with the idea to change the name. Neither did her husband, Jose Rincon Sr., an active member of the El Encanto Estates Homeowners Association.

The idea came from a neighbor, Brad Rollings, a father and sometime political opponent of Jose Rincon Sr. in the discussions surrounding renovations to El Con Mall, which the neighborhood abuts.

“As a father, I think he could truly empathize,” Adriana Rincon said. Rollings was on vacation Friday, and unavailable for comment.

The Tucson City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to approve the name change. The signs are expected to change late next week, said Councilwoman Nina Trasoff, whose office helped the family through the bureaucratic process, if the City Council OKs the change.

“The fact that it was not the family, but a neighbor, who made the suggestion, the fact that it was another neighborhood – the street is technically in another neighborhood – that approved the plan – those things make it more special,” Trasoff said.

For the family, it’s about the memory. They plan to affix a bronze plaque to the wall of their house, at the corner of Jones and Fifth Street, to explain who their son was and why Guapo wasn’t just about looks.

“From Day 1, he’s always been quirky,” Adriana Rincon said, listing Jose’s accomplishments as a student, a mariachi and an athlete. “We raised our kids to make a difference. He’s still making a difference.”

Meanwhile, the driver of the car police say hit Jose – Glenda Rumsey, 42 – is awaiting trial. She has been charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault on a minor, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and three driving under the influence charges.

Police said Rumsey’s blood-alcohol content was above 0.15 at the time of the accident, according to court records. The legal limit is 0.08. Rumsey is free on $50,000 bond, court records show.

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<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/polls/questions.php?id=1163″></script>

In talks with Tucson to obtain warehouse space

Teens enjoy a concert at Skrappy's former location at 201 E. Broadway.

Skrappy’s, a downtown youth empowerment center, is moving out of its temporary home Thursday in the basement of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson, 160 E. Alameda St., and going on hiatus until a new location is nailed down, spokeswoman Angela Hagen said.

Skrappy’s has functioned on a partial basis at Big Brothers Big Sisters since October after getting evicted from the former Continental Trailways depot, 201 E. Broadway, where there were frequent live shows and other youth activities.

Our Family Services, Skrappy’s parent organization, is in talks with the city to lease a vacant state-owned warehouse at 35 E. Toole Ave. that the city controls. Skrappy’s computer equipment, sound equipment, electronics and art supplies will be moved into the warehouse Thursday, Hagen said.

“We have a right of entry but we don’t have a certificate of occupancy,” she said. “Whether that space turns into storage space or a permanent home, that is not decided. There are still a lot of unknowns about the inspections.”

The big question is how much will it cost to fix up the building for occupancy, she said.

Skrappy’s attendance has plummeted since the move from Broadway because the popular music concerts did not continue at Big Brothers Big Sisters, where activities were limited to working on computers, sewing and fashion, and dance, Hagen said.

“(Attendance) has been way off what it used to be,” Hagen said, but she didn’t have immediate attendance figures.

Skrappy’s is nationally recognized as a model of positive youth development and civic engagement that offers a variety of programs from dance, filmmaking and art classes to health fairs and volunteering opportunities.

Fifteen West Side teenagers gave $25,000 in city youth services funds to programs involving deaf and blind children, West African drumming, a park’s aerosol can mural class and Tucson High Magnet School’s MEChA program.

The youths, part of the local nonprofit Every Voice in Action Foundation, were charged with allocating the money on behalf of Councilwoman Regina Romero to Ward 1 programs in the areas of nature, arts, culture and heritage. These are the focus of the Pima Cultural Plan.

The group got 20 proposals during the seven weeks they devoted to narrowing the focus to arts and culture and establishing a criteria for applicants to meet. The youths also evaluated all the submissions, interviewed six applicants and chose the four that best met the criteria:

• $5,000 to the Arizona Blind and Deaf Children’s Foundation for its heritage program at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.

• $8,000 to the Art in Reality program at Tucson Parks & Recreation Department for its spray-paint mural class.

• $6,000 to the Dambe Project to continue its West African percussion elective class at City High School.

• $6,000 to Tucson High’s Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán for its Unity Festival.

“It was a long process, not only trying to push your idea, but also considering other people’s thoughts,” said Armando Sotelo, 19, a Pima Community College student and part of the Every Voice in Action group.

Romero said the youths see things differently than she does in what they would enjoy and what would help the community. City and Tucson high schools are not in Romero’s ward but many of their students live in Ward 1, she said.

“I feel very confident in what they selected,” Romero said. “They had good, lively discussions as to how the money is going to be used.”

Every Voice in Action usually has youths award grants from its $8 million endowment. This was the second time an Every Voice team allocated city money, said Ed Mercurio-Sakwa, the organization’s program director.

“We’re definitely in conversations with several (City Council) wards in how to bring the youth voice into their work and decisions,” he said.

Mercurio-Sakwa said these 15 youths took the grant-making process seriously.

“They really stuck to their criteria,” he said. “They made sure not to get caught up with emotions or whether they liked it or not. They looked for effective programs that served the youth of the ward.”

A key criteria the teens established was that youth had to be involved in the decision-making process for the proposed programs.

“The four that were standing out were currently working with youth and involved youth in the decision making,” Sotelo said.

The Every Voice award will allow the West African percussion elective to be offered for a third year at City High, a downtown charter school at 48 E Pennington St.

“We would not be able to run (the elective) without that money,” said Eve Rifkin, City High’s academic director. “It’s the class where many kids really open up through African drumming. Shy, quiet kids are coming out of their shell.”

Sotelo said the Dambe Project proposal included quotes from City High students that “showed what they learned and what they were able to take home and how it opened their eyes to a different culture.”

The Every Voice team was impressed that Dambe showcases a West African culture that is not all that evident in Hispanic and Anglo dominant Tucson.

“It hits really hard with culture,” Sotelo said.

The team funded the Art in Reality spray-paint mural class because graffiti is a big problem, but the art form is also “really relevant art.”

“That’s a really big thing right now,” Sotelo said, noting he just saw extraordinary spray-paint murals in Los Angeles.

Sotelo said the group funded the Arizona Blind and Deaf Children’s Foundation because Katarina Honyumptewa, a student at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind wanted to bring back the school’s heritage festival, which has not been staged since 2000. The grant helps fund integrating heritage instruction in the academic and arts curriculum, which culminates with the festival, said Rita Weatherholt, the foundation’s executive director.

“A student was asking ‘Why don’t we have this?’ ” Sotelo said.

The youth also funded the Unity Festival put on by MEChA at Tucson High Magnet School. Pima County supervisors gave $1,500 for this April’s festival.

“It had a lot to do with art,” Sotelo said. “The big thing is youth are organizing it. If youth want that after school, why not let them have it.”

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ON THE WEB

• Youths get green light to divvy up city funds

tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/91897.php

• Every Voice in Action Foundation

everyvoicefoundation.org

• The Dambe Project

dambe.org

• Arizona Blind and Deaf Children’s Foundation

www.azblinddeafchildren.org

More than 200 teens from 25 high schools across southern Arizona will gather on the University of Arizona campus Monday.

Entering its fifth year, the Youth Empowered for Success (YES) Teen Institute asks students to identify negative situations at school and find a way to combat them over the next year.

A previous area of concern was safety on campus.

“At Mountain View High School, students felt unsafe in the bathrooms,” said Pam Parrish, spokeswoman for the Tucson-based and publicly funded Community Partnership of Arizona, which finances YES.

“Students went through and repainted all the bathrooms,” Parrish said. “It really gave them a sense of ownership and made them feel safer.”

Another issue discussed during past meetings was racial stereotypes.

“Catalina (Magnet) High School has a diverse student body, from many countries. Students realized that this could be a source of division or something to celebrate,” Parrish said.

“They decided to have a culture week. Every day a different group put on music and dancing and brought food.”

Parrish said there were no fights on campus during that week.

The program, which lasts through Friday and is run by behavioral health specialists and recent youth alumni, also focuses on creating a bond between participants through physical activities.

One of these is the TI (Teen Institute) Olympics, composed of what Parrish calls “fun, silly games.”

“One year we had them racing tricycles, and another year we had hula hoops,” Parrish said.

Tucson’s major school districts will be represented, as will schools from local Indian reservations and from surrounding counties.