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Students host group from south of border

Last week, Grand Canyon School hosted a group of students, parents and teachers from Santa Ana, Mexico, and plan a return visit this month through the Hands Across the Border program.

The group arrived here on Wednesday, March 28 and left on Saturday, March 31. During their short visit, students sat in on classes, visited the rim, saw the IMAX movie and went ice skating in Flagstaff. Grand Canyon students visit Santa Ana this month.

Program coordinators here are Peggy Russell and Katie Buttram. Russell has been with the program since the first exchange in the 2004-2005 school year and Buttram, who taught in Mexico, joined her as co-coordinator this year.Russell said the purpose of the program is to promote understanding between cultures.

"It's to learn and share cultural likeness and differences, to grow as people and to educate," she said.

Through the course of the school year, there are four exchange visits. The first two, in the fall, are between parents and teachers at both schools. In the spring about a dozen students travel each way. Grand Canyon's group visits Mexico this month.

The Hands Across the Border Foundation grew out of a cultural exchange in 1981, initiated by Gene Brust, school superintendent in Palominas, Ariz., with Arizpe in Sonora, Mexico. That exchange brought press attention and interest from both sides of the border, leading to the establishment of the non-profit foundation and a sister foundation, Manos a Traves de la Fontera, in Mexico. More than 100 schools now participate. The program also operates between northern states and Canada.

Grand Canyon first participated in an exchange in the 2004-2005 school year with a school in Navajoa, Mexico. The 22-hour trip there proved to be too daunting and not enough students signed up to participate last year.

"I know that contributed to the lack of support last year on the part of the kids," Russell said.

Santa Ana is much closer, about 115 miles south of Tucson.

The program is supported mostly through fund-raising, though the school does provide some transportation support. The 11 participating students began raising money in the fall, starting with a Navajo taco sale at the Valle Air Show in September. They have raised about $800 with another $800 coming in through the Arizona School Tax Credit program.

"The program has been very wonderfully supported with tax credit money," said Russell.

Santa Ana is bigger than Grand Canyon Village, with a population of about 10,000 and 420 students enrolled in the public high school. Buttram described it as "very typical, what you'd think of Mexico. There's a little town square and the church is off the square. It's very quaint."

While the program culminates with two exchange visits ­ one to Mexico and one here ­ participation is a year-long commitment.

At the start, parents and students sign commitment papers indicating they will participate fully.

"It's more than a student's responsibility. It's a family's responsibility," Russell said.

Fund-raising is only a part. They also meet twice monthly, once with students during lunch and once with students and parents in the evening, to talk about travel plans and fund raising. They have also been preparing for the cultural change.

"We had a wonderful lecture by one of the rangers, David Smith from the Park Service came over," she said. "We talked about cultural exchanges and what it means food-wise, money-wise, social class issues, those kinds of things that were very informative to the kids."

Though the monthly meetings aren't required by HATB, Russell said that without them the program tends to lose support.

"There's generally not a requirement but you don't keep your interest," she said. "You don't keep your momentum if you don't have a kid meeting and you don't have a kid-parent meeting, if you don't get a commitment, you don't have a program. It doesn't work."

Technology teacher and Santa Ana HATB coordinator Martha Cecilia Bellian said that while this is the first year her school has participated, they plan to continue.

Interest was so high there that they had to use a lottery to select 11 students out of the more than 60 who applied.

She said one of the key differences is that Grand Canyon has more ethnic diversity.

"Here there are Mexicans, Americans, Indians. This is rich for our students," she said. "We don't have that."

She said Grand Canyon also has smaller class sizes. In her school they have about 45 students per class.

As far as the students themselves, however, the differences are much less.

"I don't see too much difference in our students," she said. "They like the same things, they have the same curiosity, they are similar."

An added treat for last week's visitors was snow, something that most of them had never seen.


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