Anderson committed to stopping domestic abuse

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A hoe stands just outside a door at the home of Torri and Kelly Anderson.

Whenever one of their younger boys says he is bored, he is told to go outside, pick up the hoe and use it to weed the plants and vegetables at the Anderson homestead in Maricopa.

 “I only heard that phrase, ‘I’m bored’ once this whole summer,” says Torri, the mother of three boys and the wife of Maricopa’s former mayor.

The Andersons believe education just begins in school. The process must continue at home and in nearly every aspect of a child’s home life.

Torri and Kelly are the parents of Calder, 23; Ian, 12; and Jackson, 10.

The three children are at the center of one of the city’s busiest households, with both parents actively involved in their children’s education and in their community’s growth and progress.  Torri, a former teacher, is vice president of Maricopa United School District’s Governing Board, having been chosen last December to fill a vacancy on the board. Kelly was appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer to the board of the state’s Department of Transportation. But these are just the latest involvements of this energetic and determined couple.

In 2005, Torri established and still directs the efforts of the Seeds of Change Gala, an annual fundraising event for Against Abuse, Inc., an organization dedicated to building and running a local shelter for abused women and children. A groundbreaking was recently held for the Maricopa shelter. The exact location is kept confidential for security reasons. Next year’s gala is set for Feb. 25 at the Province community center. 

Torri spent 10 years on the board of the Arizona Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and was on her way to a gym class when she took time out for an interview.

“Those endorphins keep me going,” she says.

She describes how she and Kelly met.

“We met at a Stagecoach Days dance, and I went to school with Kelly’s brothers,” Torri says. “In those days, Stagecoach Days was the big event of the year, socially.”

Both are products of the Maricopa school system, Torri since she was 10 years old, and Kelly since kindergarten.

“My parents lived in Maryvale and when I was 10, they bought three and a half acres out here and we moved to get out of what they then considered a crowded city to the cleaner air and wide open spaces,” she says.

Her father commuted daily to his job in Phoenix back then, as many Maricopans today do. “But the roads are better now,” she says.

Her parents, two brothers, a sister and their families all live in Maricopa, as do Kelly’s parents and sister. So her family and Kelly’s have seen Maricopa grow phenomenally from a dusty little farming and railroad town to a modern city with many of the services larger communities offer.

The key to Maricopa’s continuing progress, Torri says, is the community’s commitment to education. And that includes home-schooling, online education, attendance at schools out of town and private schools.

“What really matters is parental involvement,” Torri says. “The schools and the students need commitments from whole families, not just the kids who attend class.”

When Torri was growing up, students and their parents in Maricopa had limited choices. “There were two sixth-grade classes, two seventh grades and two eighth grades,” she says. “Whoever happened to drive through town got hired to teach. Compare that to all of the many choices we all have today,” she says.

Responding to occasional complaints about the quality of a Maricopa education, Torri says there has always been a core group of community members who have kept their kids in local schools. “We’re not a sub-par educational institution,” she says. “We’re first class. We’re invested. We’re not going anywhere. We are going to make it better.”

Some of the challenges today’s students face, she says, lie in the fact that transfers are disruptive — to the students, the teachers and the parents.

“It wouldn’t be so difficult if Maricopa kids started out in kindergarten and stayed right through the 12th grade,” she says, “but at the same time I welcome the growth we’ve had and the flavor that it lends to our education mix. People have brought their experiences, their culture, their traditions with them. It just makes the whole product more enriching and exciting.

“Teachers, for the most part, want parents to ask questions, to challenge the status quo, to become involved. That’s a lot more important and meaningful than checking them onto the bus in the morning and not seeing them until seven at night,” Torri says.

“Parents today can check into each classroom on the Internet; there’s really no excuse not to know how your kids are doing or whether they’re involved. The tools exist. It’s whether or not they’re used.”

Torri’s enthusiasm for her community and for the improvement of the entire education process elicited a note of caution from her husband:  “Slow down,” Kelly says. “You can’t do everything right away.”

Gradually, Torri learned to concentrate on the big picture and focused her endless energies on one objective at a time. That’s what brought her to the Seeds of Change Gala idea. It was a way to help others by getting others involved in a concrete solution to domestic abuse, one of society’s toughest challenges, rather than personally assisting one victim.

“Sometimes we find people willing to take a stand for what they believe,” said gala committee member Joyce Hollis. “And once in a while, we find an individual capable of infusing others with enthusiasm for a truly worthwhile endeavor. Torri Anderson’s enthusiasm and dedication is the basis for Maricopa’s domestic violence shelter becoming a reality.”