Moriah Chavez

Two years ago, as a seventh-grader at Spencer Butte, Moriah Chavez began earning elective credits as a volunteer peer tutor in special-ed teacher Todd Brenneman's life skills classroom. "This is one student who really has her head on straight," Brenneman reports. "Moriah truly cares for the students and always wants the best for them." Chavez continued as a tutor in eighth grade. "I really liked it," she says. "When I heard they were doing summer school for a month, I volunteered for that." Now a freshman at South Eugene, Chavez recently finished her season with the JV volleyball team. She still puts in an hour a day as a life-skills tutor at South. "I go swimming with them at the Y, or we go downtown on the bus," she says. "There are five other tutors -- they spread us out through the day." In her third summer of work with the Northwest Youth Corps, Chavez spent a solid month in the woods this past summer in a crew of 10, building trails and bridges, pruning and planting trees. "It's hard work but it's fun -- we earn minimum wage," she notes. "Everybody got stung except for me. I've had enough peanut butter sandwiches to last me for all time."

happening people photograph and story by Paul Neevel Eugene Weekly / 16 October 2003