COMMUNITY STORIES

Tammy has been working at Oyama Elementary School for the last 11 years as the School Principal. Oyama Elementary is one of the 18 schools which participate in United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona’s My Summer Library program. The goals of My Summer Library are to improve 3rd-grade reading proficiency, build students’ home libraries and mitigate summer learning loss. Young students (pre-kindergarten to second grade) at Oyama select age-appropriate books to build a home library. These books are essential for under-resourced families to help their children foster a love of literacy and the skills to become fluent readers later in the elementary years. “My school and career have been working with families that live at or below the poverty line. I have watched many families struggle just to maintain a place to live and be able to pay bills. This leaves very little energy for families to focus on just being a family. When I see United Way helping so many of them in a variety of ways I am encouraged and want to help even more. United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona has their finger on the pulse of the needs in the community and I am proud to be able to work with them.”