When community activist Mary Alice Eckstrom died in March, there was one less person working for the common good of Tucson, one less person who made an effort to improve the lives of others through education.
But her family and friends refuse to let her valiant spirit remain quiet. A scholarship fundraising dinner will be held Friday so that others can follow Eckstrom's community footprints.
The Mary Alice Eckstrom Celebración de la Comunidad- the Celebration of the Community - will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kino Recreation Center at 2805 E. Ajo Way, near South Country Club.
"We want it to be a grass-roots, community-oriented dinner," said Linda Mazon Gutierrez, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Women's Corporation and one of the event's organizers.
The Eckstrom scholarship will support students at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.
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Eckstrom served on the board of directors of Catholic Community Services, and volunteered for the Pio Decimo Neighborhood Center in Barrio Santa Rosa, assisting in its housing projects and in youth and child-care programs. She also served on the board for St. Ambrose Catholic School and volunteered for 10 years there, and was a member and former president of the League of Mexican-American Women.
Eckstrom died in March of lymphoma. She had been in remission for breast cancer for 25 years. She was married to former Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom, and their daughter is South Tucson Mayor Jennifer Eckstrom.
"She was a community leader in her own right," said Mazon Gutierrez.
In addition to raising funds for the Mary Alice Eckstrom scholarship, proceeds from the dinner will also support two other scholarships named after community activists who died of cancer and who left their legacies of community work.
The Maria Kelly Yniguez scholarships are for students in the UA College of Medicine, and the Lorraine Lee scholarships are for Pima Community College students.
Yniguez was a UA graduate and nurse who challenged Arizona's English-only constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1988. The state's Supreme Court ruled the amendment unconstitutional in 1998. She died in 2001. Lee was executive vice president of Chicanos Por La Causa, a nonprofit social-service agency involved in housing, employment, business loans, charter schools and youth center. She died in 2007.
Mazon Gutierrez said the scholarships are aimed at increasing the number of students in health-related fields who "are committed to culturally competent care" by understanding a patient's language, cultural background and values.
One of the recipients is Cazandra Zaragoza, a grad student in public health. In addition to school she works at the UA College of Medicine nearly full time and is the married mother of a young son.
The scholarship will help her earn her degree - a master's in public health with a concentration in policy and management - with the goal of entering medical school. She keeps her eye on the prize of eventually working with Latinos to provide quality health care and public health programs.
"I am not only aware of the issues that my people face but am dedicated to changing the health of a population that has for so long been ignored by society. I am equipped to give a voice to one of the largest and most-neglected minority groups in the U.S.," Zaragoza, who was born in Mexico, grew up in California and lives in Sahuarita, wrote me in an e-mail.
That is the kind of focus and commitment the scholarship committee is looking for, said Mazon Gutierrez.
That is the kind of community engagement Eckstrom wanted.
Tickets for the dinner are $35 and can be purchased in advance by calling 520-342-8992 or at the door.
Ernesto Portillo Jr. is editor of La Estrella de Tucsón. He can be reached at netopjr@azstarnet.com or at 573-4187.
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