TUCSON – Toddlers scrambled around the Southside Tucson living room while five women listened to Randiesia Riggs begin one of her Friday evening Sister Circle meetings.
“Meth causes people to get aggressive,” Riggs told the women. “I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
The topic of this meeting was party drugs, and the activity for the mothers and their children was learning how to sew heart-shaped coasters. The meeting was also one of the pieces of Riggs’ developing organization called “I Can Do All Things,” in which she is trying to make a difference in Tucson’s minority community.
Riggs, 32, is the founder of the nonprofit organization. The 5-foot-5, slender woman who wears a headband said her goal is to revolutionize social services for the minority community by teaching people they don’t have to be poor.
It has taken Riggs, a Ph.D. student in organizational management at the University of Phoenix and a 12-year Marine Corps veteran, a long time to get to this point. First, she had to overcome some incredible odds in her own life.
She was born in Los Angeles and became homeless with her family when she was 7 years old. She spent most of her childhood hopping between the hotels dotting violent and drug-infested streets.
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Riggs said she was abused as a child and never had a mentor or guidance, but she managed to graduate from a magnet high school with honors and a perfect GPA. She said no one ever told her that she could go to college or that she didn’t have to accept being poor.
After high school, she got a job at a Burger King.
“People would drive through and ask me, ‘What are you doing here,’” she said. “If you’re not pushed to do something, then you’re not going to ever go beyond what you know. No one gave me the opportunity to say this is what I should be doing.”
To escape her environment, Riggs joined the United States Marines Corps. She said she passed boot camp with ease but soon faced unanticipated obstacles, including discrimination and even rape.
“I was so irritated that someone treated me like I’m less than somebody,” she said.
The military wasn’t all bad, however, and Riggs said she took advantage of options that were opened to her, such as attending college. She said she chose the UA because it was close enough to home and she was undergoing training at FortHuachuca.
After a dozen years of service, Riggs ended her career with the Marines and decided to go back to the UA for a master’s degree. Ready to redirect her energy, Riggs took a job as a teacher at the Academic & PersonalExcellenceHigh School in Tucson, a charter school that serves grades 6-12.
Many students would come to school high or pregnant, and some wouldn’t come at all because they were in jail, Riggs said.
She said that her enthusiasm slowly deteriorated and she became discouraged in her attempt to make a difference. “I was sorting clothes one day and I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Riggs said.
She said that’s when she had a vision of I Can Do All Things.
Riggs said she created ICDAT and geared it toward 16- to 24-year-olds. Still in development, the program hopes to one day remove impoverished or troubled youth from their home environment, place them in transitional housing and provide them a peaceful place to eat and sleep while changing their perceptions about financial stability and success.
ICDAT will also teach them survival skills, and most of all, assist them with the transition into college.
The goal is to get them not to “think poorly, remove them from the generational poverty they come from and teach them something new,” Riggs said.
Jessica Bennett, 18, Riggs’ assistant at ICDAT and a student at Pima Community College, said Riggs “is the reason why I’m in college right now.”
Bennett said that when she finished high school, she had no idea how to apply for college and had no one to turn to. That’s when she found Riggs and ICDAT.
Riggs has expanded her organization to include four other programs – Sister Circle, Fathers Being Fathers, I Can Do College Now and a literacy program.
Back at the Sister Circle meeting, 28-year-old Shauntella Mack stretched out a fabric with heart designs while her 9-year-old daughter, Kyara, cut out heart shapes to make a coaster.
The purpose of Sister Circle is to build self-esteem in women, as well as teach them about public health, life skills and cultural practices, Riggs said.
Mack said it’s even more. “It’s a good time to have mother and daughter time,” she said. “Every time I come it’s a different experience.”
Riggs’ programs serve a number of community needs. She said that last year, she and her organizations served more that 9,000 meals to Tucsonans. This year, she’s planning a financial workshop in July for people 16 to 24 years old.
“She’s a good role model,” said Sue Kiley White, deputy director of the Youth Empowerment Services Network in Tucson, an agency established in 2007 that recruits financial and community partners to provide administrative support to small nonprofits.“She doesn’t want to see other people go through what she went through.”
Emily Smith, who opened up her home for the Sister Circle meeting, said Riggs’ organizations let women “realize that there are people out there with the same interest and problems. Sister Circle is also a good way to have a good time.”
Riggs said she’s hoping to expand her programs into even more homes in the future if funding is available.
ICDAT and its associated programs function solely on grants, sponsorships and fundraising. Riggs said that last year, she applied for sevengrants of all kinds and received only two. “We need somebody to adopt us,” she added.
But in the midst of a receding economy, Riggs said she has had to trim back on some programs. She said the economy is affecting her family at home – two children, ages 2 and 4, and husband, Bryan. She said Bryan, a teacher’s aide, just received a 15 percent pay cut.
Still, she’s trying to make progress. She’s now looking for a leader for the Fathers Being Fathers program, which teaches men that it is better to stay a parent than leave their child. The program teaches conflict resolution and provides time for men to hang out with other men while bringing their kids along, Riggs said.
In the I Can Do College Now program, Riggs focuses on helping individuals transition into college. She said that higher education is one thing that she encourages in all of her programs.
Riggs also is trying to expand the ICDAT main program by purchasing a ranch on Tucson’s west side, but she has yet to find funding to pay for the property. It will house the students and provide a larger meeting space for the other programs.
Meanwhile, she’s still handling most of ICDAT activities out of her Tucson home or wherever she can find a meeting place.
