| Mary Wierman’s life was about helping other people. Mary earned a Bachelor’s degree in nursing from Creighton University after which she worked as a public health nurse in Omaha, Nebraska. She frequently made home health visits to elderly patients living in incredible poverty and sometimes dangerous conditions (the equivalent of today’s crack houses). She would recount times when after opening her supplies in preparation to change a patient’s surgical dressing, a cockroach would jump out and run across the sterile field. Mary and her husband moved to Wyoming in the late 1970’s where they started a family. Although she chose to be a full-time mother when her children were small, after a few years, she started public heath nursing again and became a member of the county’s Child Protection Team. As a team member, she helped evaluate possible cases of child abuse. Although some of the individual cases were heartbreaking, she gained great satisfaction from helping abused children and their families. After the family moved to Colorado Springs in the mid-1980’s, Mary continued to work for children but her focus shifted more toward education. She worked as a school nurse at a private high school. She joined Junior League and volunteered for “Kids on the Block,” a puppet show presented in elementary schools to help educate children about their disabled classmates. She joined the Salvation Army women’s auxiliary and became involved with fund-raising efforts to buy shoes for school children from low income families. She became involved with School District 11 by helping to create Chipeta elementary school. She did much of the initial census work justifying the need for the school, served on the architectural committee and then became the school’s first PTA president. In 1993 she ran for the District 11 school board with the campaign slogan, “Children are my only special interest.” Although being a board member was very difficult at times, she was extremely proud to have been involved with the first successful bond issue for the district in 25 years, with the implementation of technology resources, with developing partnerships with private businesses which helped student achievement and by witnessing substantial improvement in test scores throughout the district. During her time on the school board, Mary discovered the writings of Ruby Payne, specifically “A Framework of Poverty.” This book sought to explain some of the “cultural” differences between the rich and poor in this country and how to most effectively provide assistance. From her own experiences, Mary felt that although some people were in poverty situations because of poor choices they made and continue to make, many others were motivated to succeed and willing to work hard but had little idea of how or where to apply their efforts. She strongly felt that many government “assistance” programs really did nothing more than create an “entitlement” mind set and perpetuate poverty throughout multiple generations of families. She felt that what was needed was a program that “invested” in people and expected the recipients to “perform” by working, going to school, managing their money wisely and generally succeeding in society. After retiring from the school board in 2005, Mary was invited by Lynn Peterson, a former President of the D-11 board, to join the Pikes Peak Community Action Agency Board. When she discovered that PPCAA’s operating philosophy closely paralleled her own thinking about the proper way to provide assistance to people in need Mary became extremely excited about the prospects for the future. She expected that with community support and funding, PPCAA would continue to produce many “graduates” who would become self-sufficient, contributing members of our society. Please consider a donation in Mary’s Name for our Youth Education Savings Program. Click on ONLINE GIVING above. |
