Visiting where those of us at Family Friendly Schools have worked with schools to engage parents and staff in common goals, means stopping in every once in a while to see how they're doing. This week I was in Phoenix and stopped by Carl T. Smith Middle School in the Isaac District. Amazing.

As one of my colleagues, Elizabeth, and I walked into the parent resource room, the coordinator, Mr. Rico said, "Oh, don't worry about all those boxes. It's all stuff for the clothing bank." There were boxes all along one wall stacked five high. These guys were serious.

Toward the end of the row of boxes, there was a space and then several more boxes, but these had loaves of bread on top of them, lots of loaves of bread. "Oh, yes, we had some great donations of bread this week. That will help with the food drive," Mr. Rico said.

On the other side of the room, he held class or at least class for the kids that came in to do community service projects. "It's 60% unemployment around here," he said. "We need to do everything we can. You need to come see the Christmas tree."

In the cafeteria where the after school program creates a place for kids to be post-school activities, a dozen kids helped decorate a very large tree. It may be a bit rough economically for some of the families in the neighborhood, but Mr. Rico was making sure that there was at least some feeling of Christmas in the hearts and minds of the kids in his school. There may be many Isaac's this year. Hopefully there are just as many Mr. Ricos.

The last few days in Phoenix has been a week of watching dedicated and caring people working to share what they have and know and their love with others. Stay tuned for the story at Omega Charter. Their story is worth reading.