Edith Sayre Auslander believes education enriches lives - she has not only seen its transforming power over and over, she has lived it.
"People who go on and get a college education change the course of things and the aspirations of their children. They are better able to take care of their families financially and have a better quality of life.
"Arizona is one of the poorest states in the union - we earn the least money per capita - and education can turn that around," said Sayre Auslander, 72, the 2011 Educational Enrichment Foundation Lifetime Humanitarian Achievement Award honoree.
She'll be given the award at the 13th Annual Ray Davies Lifetime Humanitarian Achievement Award Luncheon Oct 27 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Tucson-Reid Park.
A native Tucsonan, Sayre Auslander earned both bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Arizona, then worked as a reporter and editor for the Arizona Daily Star and as vice president of human resources for Tucson Newspapers Inc.
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An avid advocate for education, she became an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Arizona, then served an eight-year term with the Arizona Board of Regents, acting as president of the board for the 1989-90 academic year.
The winner of numerous writing awards and other professional honors - she has been listed three times in Hispanic Business magazine as one of 100 influential U.S. Hispanics - Sayre Auslander continues to pay tribute to her Wildcat roots in her contracted position as a consultant to the University of Arizona Foundation Arizona Assurance Scholars Program.
Implemented in 2008, the program will graduate its first class in 2012. The financial-assistance and retention program allows qualified low-income Arizona students to graduate from the University of Arizona debt-free.
"I was the first of my family to go to college, and I am Mexican-American, so I do care very much about the Arizona Assurance Program," she said. "Indicators are that the percentage of graduates in the first class will break all records. We are projecting that at least 60 percent - likely in the high 60s - will graduate in May, close to double the norm in Arizona of 34 percent in four years."
Sayre Auslander's enthusiasm for public education extends to the elementary level. She supports nonprofit groups such as the Educational Enrichment Foundation, which was founded in 1983 by community and business leaders to provide resources to expand and enrich learning by supporting TUSD students and teachers.
The foundation provides 41 classroom grants for teachers and librarians for diverse subjects and projects including field trips, water conservation, speakers, literacy, fine arts, math, science and technology.
It also grants 25 annual college scholarships and more than 908 interscholastic scholarships for middle and high school students unable to pay the mandatory $50 participation fee per activity for extracurricular activities and team sports.
Additionally, the foundation's special-needs services included distributing $60,000 in school supplies last year; a clothing bank that supplied more than $7,000 in clothing and uniforms; and various shoe programs that provided 1,461 pairs of shoes and more than 2,200 pairs of socks to students in need.
Other services include a Hearing Impaired Fund; the Focus on Vision program, which provides eye exams and prescription eyeglasses for students at 57 different schools; a Tucson Community Food Bank Program and a General Special-Needs Fund that supplies students with Sun Tran passes.
These services are essential since about 70 percent of the student body in TUSD qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, according to the foundation's executive director, Lissa Gibbs.
"More than half of our programs directly address basic life needs like food, eyeglasses, clothes, shoes, hearing aids and transportation. Those things are barriers to kids even attending school and are at the heart of what we do," she said.
"It doesn't matter how fantastic the education is if a kid is not going to school because he is sharing a pair of shoes with his brother or a kid can't see or hear the teacher."
Sayre Auslander credits the foundation with providing necessities that enable children to complete their education.
"Since the future of our community and our state depends on how well we educate young people and how well-prepared they are to do various jobs, anything that keeps them in school and heading toward completion serves us all well," she said.
If you go
What: 13th Annual Ray Davies Lifetime Humanitarian Achievement Award Luncheon to benefit the Educational Enrichment Foundation
When: 11:30 a.m. Oct. 27
Where: Grand Ballroom at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Tucson-Reid Park, 445 S. Alvernon Way
Cost: $75 per person ($45 is tax-deductible)
About the event: Festivities include a luncheon, entertainment by the Tucson Magnet High School Steel Drum Ensemble and an awards ceremony featuring master of ceremonies Ernesto "Neto" Portillo Jr. and honoring Edith Sayre Auslander and the Tucson Electric Power Co. Proceeds go to classroom grants for educator-initiated projects that directly serve students and to the administration of Educational Enrichment Foundation programs for teachers, students and school sites in the Tucson Unified School District.
For more information or to make a donation to the foundation, which qualifies for the Arizona Tax Credit for Contributions to Charities that Provide Assistance to the Working Poor, go to http://eeftucson.org or call 325-8688.
Contact freelance writer Loni Nannini at ninch2@comcast.net.
