Volunteers orchestrate Mariachi Conference

More than 200 contribute skills and support to benefit La Frontera Center, which provided mental-health and substance-abuse services in Tucson.

Volunteers Sylvia Cañez (far left) and Rosa Loreto run a souvenir table at the 19th annual Tucson International Mariachi Conference. Below, volunteer Peggy Rodriguez works on crepe paper flowers.
Photos by VAL CAÑEZ/Tucson Citizen

SANDRA VALDEZ GERDES
Citizen Staff Writer
April 28, 2001

Corrected version
FIESTA DE GARIBALDI
The work they do is priceless.
Some sell Mexican curios and beverages. Others register participants. Some monitor the hallways on class days, count money or organize the entertainment.
They do each job with pride, knowing that every contribution is valued and important to the cause - helping Tucson families in dire need of behavioral health services.
They are the Tucson International Mariachi Conference volunteers, and without them there would be no conference.
"This is an event that's put on by the community for the community," says Daniel J. Ranieri, executive director of La Frontera Center, a nonprofit organization that has provided mental-health and substance-abuse services in Tucson since 1968.
La Frontera organizes the conference each year, and with a small conference staff of just three people, the center depends on the more than 200 volunteers who give their time each year to host the weeklong event.
Volunteers include a 20-member Mariachi Conference board and area residents who work anywhere from two to 200 hours or more.
The Mariachi Conference is the center's biggest fund-raiser with all proceeds benefiting the center's child and family programs. During the past 18 years, the conference has raised nearly $3.5 million for the center, which serves about 8,000 people annually, Ranieri says.
The four-day conference wraps up today with festivities at Armory Park, at Sixth Avenue and 13th Street. Today's events, which are free to the public, include Garibaldi, a mariachi festival, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and an art exhibit from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
You are certain to find Mariachi Conference volunteers there basking in the fruit of their labor.
Volunteerism among this group is inspiring. Some have donated their time each year for the life of the conference. They've sat back and watched as the Mariachi Conference students have grown up to return as conference teachers.
Others use their vacation time to contribute all they can.
Mary Lee Valdez, now a Mariachi Conference board member, and her cousin Elda Islas have volunteered each year for nearly two decades. The women remember the "grass-roots" days, under the direction of Nelba Chavez, when they walked the streets asking for contributions to fund La Frontera's main building at 29th Street and Interstate10.
Back then, Islas confesses that organizing the conference was chaotic. "We didn't really know what we were doing, but we were there."
Each year many of the volunteers returned to do the same job, and with time they became very good at it, resulting in smooth operations even as the conference grew larger.
Elvira Bustamante, a 12-year volunteer who has worked for La Frontera for 20 years, says she delights in seeing that the youth have such an interest in mariachi and cultural awareness. "Just watching them grow up is rewarding to me," she says.
Peggy Rodriguez, a bank teller at Wells Fargo, has a different motive. She used La Frontera's counseling services 25 years ago after a severe automobile accident. So for the past 10 years, she has given back by taking a week off work to help out wherever she is needed.
"I strongly believe that (La Frontera's services) helped me in my life, and that's why I do as much as I can for them," she says.
The conference has a dual purpose, says Leslie Miller, a Pima County Superior Court judge and Mariachi Conference board member. It instills the mariachi culture and music in the community and all those who participate, and it serves the community by meeting the mental-health needs of families and children.
"I think it's really important that people have an opportunity to learn more and understand more about the culture to keep the music alive," Miller says. "I think that it's a very positive thing for children to be involved in, and I think they can improve their lives through the music."
She adds that concert profits provide mental-health services to the community and "that's important because there are a lot of kids at risk out there."
Nelba Chavez, former executive director of La Frontera, says people have always given of themselves whatever they could because they want to ensure that a facility would be built for the people by the people. The people came together, she says, because it wasn't just a festival.
"It became a very important educational component where young people, as well as old people, could participate in classes to learn not only the history of mariachi music, but also expand their knowledge of it," Chavez says.
"The Mariachi Conference would not have been possible without the involvement and participation of so many people of good will. Every person that was involved had a very unique and a very important role to play, and each person was valued for the contribution they made."