You see them around in the Grant High School hallways. You’ll hear about them organizing fundraisers and coordinating our dances. They can be found in the library, the office, the College and Career Center, the home sports games. Their names are heard around the community, receiving praise and honorable mention. Yes, you see them. But do you know who they are? Can you place their names with their faces? Do you know the people who donate so much of their time to our high school without thinking of taking any credit?
“I can’t imagine getting so much done here without the parent volunteers,” says Principal Vivian Orlen.
Meet three of Grant’s parent volunteers who never cease to step up to help our community, our neighborhoods, our high school.
Jen Xochihua: Four years strong
It’s almost 10 a.m. on a Monday morning and Grant High School students file into the library. Jennifer Xochihua stands behind the counter and asks for students’ free period cards.They groan, make a big show of reaching into their bags and looking for their cards, and then hand them to the woman they know as Jen X. She smiles and says, “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” as she punches in student identification numbers on a computer.This exchange is one Xochihua encounters every Monday when she volunteers in the library. This will be her fourth year as a volunteer at the high school, which began when her oldest daughter was a freshman.“I like volunteering because I get to be in the school,” Xochihua says. “Any little thing we can do is helpful.”Xochihua has been volunteering and working for Portland Public Schools since 2001. She volunteered at Alameda Elementary School, where her two daughters went. In 2004, she was hired by the district to work as an educational assistant for kindergarteners and as a library assistant. She worked at Alameda, Rigler and Glencoe elementary schools.Now at Grant, Xochihua is experiencing something a bit different. “I’m so used to elementary kids,” she says. “You guys teach me something new. I can learn from a different group.”Paige Battle, Grant’s librarian, says she adores Xochihua and her eagerness to help. “I am extremely grateful that she’s willing to volunteer so much of her time,” Battle says. “She just helps things running smoothly and calmly.”Xochihua co-chairs the Thanksgiving break book sale. She helps students get the books they need. And she plans to continue helping the library out even after both of her daughters graduate.“I think the schools need as much help as they can get because we’re so financially strapped,” Xochihua says. “It’s amazing what one extra person can do.”
Tyrone Harvey: team supporter
Tyrone Harvey stands in the Grant High School library talking to a senior girl who has an interest in physical education and therapy. He has been setting up a visit for her to Western Oregon University, a school that has a specialty program in her subject area.“She can tour with the students and see if it’s a place she might want to go,” Harvey says after she leaves the library, a smile on her face.Harvey volunteers for the Grant girl’s basketball team and coaches the Beaumont Middle School seventh grade boy’s basketball team. But besides basketball, Harvey wants to help student athletes navigate their way into successful futures and let them know that there are people around to guide them.To Harvey, volunteering isn’t about getting himself an admirable resume or pats on the back. “My goal is to help athletes that need help,” Harvey says. “Just one day, maybe just one hour, makes all the difference.”Harvey began volunteering at Alameda when his daughter, Evan Harvey, was in kindergarten. He spent eight years at Alameda until his son, Kendall Harvey, finished fifth grade.“The memories I have of volunteering consist of seeing and knowing that I would have the opportunity to help these very young students someday make good choices all through their public school years,” Harvey says. “Now, volunteering at Grant, I will have the opportunity to further that by assisting them in finding college information.”These days, Harvey splits his time between his son’s Beaumont team and helping out the girl’s program at Grant, where his daughter is a freshman.For the girl’s basketball team, Harvey’s role is the “team support.” He is doing fundraising and helps the team from behind the bench. “I won’t say I’m the ‘team dad,’ but I kind of am,” Harvey says.He plans to get involved with the school’s College and Career Center to help student athletes prioritize so they can do well academically and go to college.
“After querying many of the athletes it’s like, ‘Wow, you didn’t know there was a career center?’ and they say, ‘No’,” Harvey says. “I’ve talked to a lot of the football players and they’re like, ‘We have a career center?’”
Harvey wants to make sure that athletes are making sure school is a top priority, not just putting all of their focus into their sports. He isn’t afraid to tell kids that if they are going to play sports, they had better get it together in the classroom.
“You could really be an average athlete and be a 4.0 student and get an athletic scholarship. And then you could be a great athlete and a horrible student and not get a scholarship,” Harvey says. “There are more people that are horrible athletes and great students that have a more successful life. Sometimes, you’ve got to look at your GPA and decide on the value.”
Harvey wants these particular kids to “un-center” themselves so they are open to the idea that they don’t always have to play sports. “It’s kind of fun seeing kids get more mature, more ready for the world,” Harvey says. “And I get to be part of it.”
Karmen Von Arx: Volunteering from the heart
Since her sons were in kindergarten, Karmen Von Arx was always the “fun” volunteer around school. She was the one who helped organize the Halloween parties in elementary school. She helped with the auctions. She chaperoned all of the dances and organized the eighth grade graduation in middle school.
“I had more fun volunteering for the fun things,” Von Arx says. “I just decided I want to do the fun stuff.”
Von Arx isn’t just in it for the fun; taking part in her community is something she learned to do growing up. “I honestly really enjoy this community,” Von Arx says. “You become a part of it.”
Von Arx moved around a lot as a child. She was the oldest of six children and was influenced by her parents’ volunteering efforts for their church. Every Monday night, the family would take part in some service event, such as feeding the poor.
“Service was a big priority in our family; my parents did the same thing,” she says. “I think it’s when you see it, you become it. I want that for my own children. I want them to be a part of their community and feel that camaraderie that comes along with it.”
Today, she’s involved at Grant because of her sons, Trevor, a junior, and Austin, a senior. She also volunteers at Beverly Cleary-Fernwood school, where her third-grader, Max, goes to school. Von Arx and her husband, Eric, help coach sprinters for the Grant track team, and she’s youth group leader at her church. In her “free time,” Von Arx is an interior designer.
It’s a juggling act being a mom and an active volunteer. But Von Arx says once you do it more every day, it becomes easier. People worry about being too busy to volunteer, she says. “But really, once you have done it for so long, it’s not that hard,” she says.
Von Arx has volunteered at schools for 13 years, and she has been able to see the kids in the community grow from start to finish.
“I planned their kindergarten parties and now I’m planning their senior parties. It’s come around full circle,” she says. “They all have the same exact personality that they did in kindergarten. One of the reasons why I’ve enjoyed this so much is because I really, really like the kids.”
Her message to those who are considering joining the volunteer ranks? “Volunteering should really be something that’s given from the heart,” she says.
