(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, a local nonprofit celebrates 25 years of helping Southern Arizona's wildlife.

(Woman) What I like most about working here is the fact that I feel like I'm doing something to help an animal that normally would not be helped.

(Tom) Local artist Terrol Dew Johnson's leadership and skills get national attention.

(Man) Basket Weaving was a gift that was given to us by creator, and it was also a lesson.

It had a meaning to it.

And that's the reason why we're weaving baskets.lk (Tom) And a poetry workshop in Saguaro National Park East.

(Woman) People tend to read poems differently than they would read maybe a piece of fiction.

The way a poem sounds is really important, and it's one of the things that distinguishes it from a piece of prose.

[upbeat music] (Tom) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, and we're coming to you from the Tucson Wildlife Center, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

It's the only wildlife hospital in southern Arizona, and it's here to help animals like this beautiful barn owl.

Animals that are injured or may need a little extra care to give them a chance to mature and perhaps get back out into the wild someday.

Now, let's take a look at a story we did here back in 2019.

And we'll be right back with an update with the executive director, Lisa Bates.

[phone ringing] (Lori) Tucson Wildlife Center, this is Lori, how can I help you?

Do you know where we're located?

Okay, we'll see you when you get here.

Thanks, bye-bye.

(Lisa) My name is Lisa Bates and I'm the Executive Director of the Tucson Wildlife Center.

I wanted to get out of the city, so I moved out, bought this piece of land, vacant.

Was gonna start a business out here.

Built this house.

I wanted to build my own house out of adobe.

Anybody can do it.

I went to the library and got a book.

Never laid a block in my life and was able to build this house and then I'm sitting there, what am I gonna do next?

And that's my passion.

Nobody talked about passion in those days.

You know, what kind of job am I gonna get next?

My friend said, well, what are you passionate about?

I said, well, it's going back and doing wildlife, rescuing wildlife.

So that's what I did, start rescuing wildlife.

[bird chirping] [gentle music] (Lou Rae) My name is Lou Rae Whitehead.

I am the Animal Care Supervisor here.

I came here 15 years ago.

I came as a volunteer.

I volunteered, worked in the education program too.

I really like the concept of rescuing the animals and then seeing them being released again.

I really like working with animals and I haven't left.

What I like most about working here is the fact that I feel like I'm doing something to help an animal that normally would not be helped.

(Roberto) My name is Roberto Aguilar and the people here call me Dr. Bob.

But I am a veterinarian, I'm a Wildlife Veterinarian.

While a vet normally sees two or three species of exotics, that will see 30, I see about 150 here.

It's very important to have people who know what they're doing.

We have very dedicated, strong technical staff and they're not only concerned with wildlife, our volunteers do it for free.

And the staff will come here, they're extremely well-qualified and competent.

So thanks to them, I still have all my fingers.

(Woman) Well, my cat got her.

(Lisa) Oh, no, cat caught.

Well, we started a surgery room in our original shop and the veterinarian said get us out of this closet.

So we moved them into another bigger surgery room in the old horse stalls.

And it's not long before they're complaining about that.

So we decided we wanted to build them a real hospital to work in and we got a bequest from a gentleman who loved wildlife and wanted to see 'em released, treated and then released back to the wild.

So he helped us build this hospital.

[gentle music] (Pete) My name is Pete Lininger.

I'm the President and one of the two Founders of Tucson Wildlife Center.

There's hundreds of really special moments, interactions with the animals you wouldn't get otherwise.

We both, my wife and I, grew up in the Sonoran Desert chasing critters when we were young.

But there's still a lot to learn and now we've got the veterinarians and so many volunteers.

It keeps growing, so we're doing something right.

It's almost like going to church.

It's better.

[laughing] (Lisa) It has progressed over time.

We were able to build it and handle more and more animals as they came.

We probably started out doing 500 to 1,000.

We're up to 3,000 animals a year.

We'll probably do 3,500 this year.

It's because the other rehabilitators have all shut down pretty much and we're the only ones left that can do veterinary work.

We have two veterinarians and a big staff, 14 employees, 180 volunteers.

So we love what we do and we'll keep the staff and the people needed to handle all the animals, the veterinarians onboard because there's nowhere else for them to go in Tucson.

(Anneli) My name is Anneli Henneke and I'm a volunteer.

I'm a retired phys-ed teacher.

And then when I retired, I was looking for kind of some volunteer thing to do to give back.

I probably learn something every day about a specific animal or about their care or their habits and the people here are great to work with, the animals, they get a little feisty sometimes, but they don't talk back, so it's fun.

(Pete) Our journey now is to see that it continues in perpetuity, that it continues for the next 25 years when I'm not climbing trees down at the VA anymore, or 20 feet up a saguaro.

Just to see it continue long after we're done.

(Lisa) A good work ethic will take you a long way.

So we had dreams and this is my dream.

I don't know that I ever envisioned it coming to fruition like it has.

I couldn't be more happy.

This is my passion, my dream and I love every day at this center.

(Tom) We're joined now by founder and executive director Lisa Bates.

And, Lisa, good to see you again.

(Lisa) Good to see you, Tom.

(Tom) A lot's gone on since 2019.

And when that story was produced, tell us what's new and where are things going now?

(Lisa) Well, we loved being on that show and I appreciate you coming for an update.

Three years then.

A lot going on.

We had another rehab center that went down about that time.

They had a fire and closed, which brought another 500 animals into our center.

So it's a big responsibility.

And when COVID hit in the last three years, there were staffing shortages, a lot of difficulty keeping people well so they could be here to feed those animals.

So we've met a lot of new volunteers that came in and helped.

25 years of growth needed to keep up with Tucson's expanding from the city into the county and into the wildlife territory has brought so many wild animals, accident victims hit by car, you name it.

A lot of territory being lost to them.

So they end up in here as orphaned like this little bunny I have here.

We're getting lots of little bunnies.

So for 25 years, we have had to grow every year.

So we're very proud of being able to still be here.

(Tom) Last year, Tohono Oodham basket weaver Terrol Dew Johnson was one of the first recipients of the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation Award in crafts.

Now, this award is intended to give momentum at a critical juncture in an artist's career, and it provided Johnson with $100,000 in unrestricted funds to amplify his voice and his work.

Here's a 2017 profile on one of Arizona's most original voices.

(Terrol) I'm almost like an ambassador.

Not that I've always wanted to be, but I guess I put myself in that position because I put myself out there (Terrol) Your knife is really dull.

(Weaver) I dont like it really sharp because I try to use it a sharp knife and it just cuts, split Basket weaving was a gift that was given to us by creator.

It was also a lesson.

It had a meaning to it.

And that's the reason why we're weaving baskets.

It's in our legends.

It's in our song.

It was a way for us to put our burdens in it.

You're in Sells, Arizona, at Tohono Oodham Community Action Building, where we have the Desert Rain Cafe and the Desert Rain Gallery TOCA started as a group of concerned community members wanting to do something positive, something really good for the community, especially for the youth.

Keep the culture alive.

(Tristan) One of the things I really want us to do as we move ahead on this is I want it to really look good.

The message is important, but also how we convey that.

Why dont Terrol and I start with the conversation on camera.

Let's go do what you need to do to be pretty.

Ill, wait.

(Terrol) You got a day?

(Tristan) Terrol and I met little over 20 years ago.

We worked together to start TOCA.

(Terrol) My name is Terrol Dew Johnson and I am Tohono Oodham from the Tohono Oodham nation.

A lot of our traditional foods are being forgotten.

And so with that happening, a lot of food-related illnesses are running rampant.

You know, we got diabetes, we got cancer.

You know, we've got obesity.

(Tristan) Where have you seen that health impacts of the move from traditional foods?

(Terrol) It's hitting home elders, dying, other people dying that aren't even elders.

You know, people my age or even younger dying because of these food related illnesses.

(Tristan)This is a project where some of my students are working with Terrol and with TOCA to tell that story of TOCA and Tohono Oodham food sovereignty over the last 20 years.

(Terrol) I was sick, you know, I had diabetes and I need to do something.

(Reporter) Some are trying to raise awareness and they're embarking on a 3000 mile journey across the country.

Kimberly Craft has that story.

(Terrol) I wanted to show people that it's possible even I could do it.

(Reporter) A diabetic tipping the scales at 300 pounds, Johnson set off on a cross-country adventure starting in Maine and traversing the plains and the mountains.

In all, he covered 3000 miles on foot, a journey that took two years.

(Terrol) The walk home was something that I'll never forget I invited the younger family members of my family to join me because I saw that they were sort of living in that lifestyle that I was.

I realize it now.

It was a huge undertaking, but you see something that needs to be done.

You do it.

Well, they used to call it Little, Little Green Valley.

Or they still do.

Were going to the garden.

(Man) Garden?

(Terrol) Yeah.

I don't like spiders either.

The hospital donated the land and they give us free water.

But then it sort of just expanded.

TOCA fluctuates, it's, during the summertime we can work with between 10 to 20 young people.

(Chris) Just picking the weeds.

(Terrol) And Chris last year was one of our interns for this summer.

So now he's running the garden.

(Chris) These are the first ones against that palm tree.

(Terrol) We started from a garden and the garden was entirely full of traditional foods and out of that grew what you see here at TOCA today with a garden, farms, a restaurant, a gallery.

(Woman) Is there a paper menu?

(Terrol) The concept behind the cafe was to make healthy food, traditional food, accessible to the community.

(Tristan) What sets TOCA apart then, from those programs?

(Terrol) Me!

[laughter] (TRISTAN) What is different in how TOCA approaches its work, from a lot of the government programs?

(Terrol) We can on the drop of a dime if it doesn't work, go back to the drawing board and figure something out.

With other programs out there.

They get funded through a grant that they had to implement that was probably written by someone who's never probably set foot on the reservation or have ever been in the Native community.

As a Native American person living on the reservation, youre isolated.

There's a whole different kind of world.

And then when you go off the reservation and go to Tucson, it's totally different.

And as a Native American in today's world, you know, we're trying to balance those two lives, those two worlds.

[electric saw] (Chris) Projects like this are an opportunity to gain new insights.

For me, this show is opening a kind of deeper resonances between our two practices.

(Terrol) Just the fact that he was an architect and was using tools like computers and things like that, and I was really interested in seeing what we could come up with.

The whole idea in the beginning was to highlight algorithms.

For myself, I, I really didn't know algorithms were.

(Chris) To connect what we were doing in a relatively abstract way into this kind of rich material and historical tradition that we could kind of look back as a way to move forward.

(Terrol) Traditionally, when weaving was taught, it was only taught to women, to young girls.

You know, a lot of weavers felt that at that point it didn't really matter who was weaving as long as it was being kept alive.

Well, right now I'm working on basically panels sewn together with traditional material, which is yucca, and then bringing basket shapes that were designed in the computer to make these we call these craters right now.

But eventually we had to come up with a fancy name.

I finally got what algorithms were.

Traditionally, we've been doing it and we didn't know we were doing it.

Took a while for someone to give it a name, but we knew that this is what we were taught by our Creator.

(Tristan) What you've tried to do is be responsive to the community.

(Terrol) It's hard work.

It's not glamorous work at all.

I remember when we first started, I was literally working 24 seven.

I truly felt in my heart that it was necessary.

Doing this kind of work for 20 years, fighting for cultural revitalization, language preservation food preservation, and then seeing other people do the same thing.

(New anchor) We return now to the escalating fight over a major oil pipeline in North Dakota this weekend... (Terrol) Early October I went to Standing Rock.

I felt I needed to be there to support my brothers, my sisters.

We're tired of people that are just hungry for money to come and tear up the land, especially sacred land.

Or not understanding that just because we're native, you can come in and do that.

That's happened from the beginning of time.

And this day we're still dealing with that stuff.

What I want the world to know that there are still Native Americans here that we have our own unique culture, that we just want to live amongst everyone else, you know, be happy, be healthy, be safe.

I'm happy and excited that this opportunity had presented itself and that Aranda/Lasch decided to work with me.

A lot of people out here on the reservation may not know the work that I do as an artist.

I'm happy to share and explain that.

But also it's twofold because then I also get to go out into the world and explain where I come from, you know, and where this art comes from and to share my culture with them.

Those conversational starters to start talking and having dialog and maybe even going beyond the art question and go beyond the Indian question and just be sharing like humans.

(Tom) Last year, poet Jodie Hollander teamed up with the National Park Service to conduct workshops all across the state to celebrate National Poetry Month.

And everyone was invited to learn more about the art form, reflect on their environment, and even write their own poem.

Well, Jodie will be back in Tucson on April first and second for more workshops.

[ Sound of a stream] (Jodie) Poetry is what I love and it's what I feel like I'm here on earth to do.

That does get sort of intimate.

I'm Jodie Hollander.

I live in Fort Collins.

I make my living, teaching and writing poetry.

This is the first workshop in a series of six.

We have the S in softly, and then we have the S in grass.

We are in the Desert Research Center, just outside the east entrance of Saguaro National Park.

It's gorgeous.

We're so lucky.

[Jazz music] People tend to read poems differently than they would read.

Maybe a piece of fiction.

The way a poem sounds is really important, and it's one of the things that distinguishes it from a piece of prose.

The idea was to try and build a whole series of these poetry workshops for National Poetry Month.

I guess the question then is how do we build sound in a poem?

And there are lots of ways to do this.

You can go and learn iambic pentameter, you can learn form, but you could also create a very musical sounding poem using free verse.

For example, deep green sea.

What sound do you hear?

E It's lovely, isn't it?

If you hear deep green, see our ears like that?

[Sound of a stream] (Sandra) I was hiking in Saguaro National Park East and I was describing to my friend like what I was seeing and how amazed and intrigued I was by the beauty of it.

And so she said, "Hey, there's going to be a poetry writing workshop."

[Bird Sounds] (Jodie) That if I stepped out of my body, I would break into Blossom.

And there's a micro pause there after the word break.

Right.

And so for a moment, we think, wait, is he going to break apart if we are having several interpretations of this poem, would you say that the poet is doing his job here?

(Sandra) We first reviewed some poems, and then I learned how to write my own poem based on what I see in nature here.

(Jodie) In the same way that our public lands are for everyone.

I think that poetry is also for everyone.

Being in nature tends to bring out sides of us that maybe wouldn't come out otherwise.

And for me, poetry is about honesty and it's about truth.

And oftentimes we're able to get to those areas of truth when we're out in nature, when we're in an environment that's peaceful or inspiring in some way.

(Man) In the thunder sky, the Octillo springs from its death slumber to blossom to leaf seemingly overnight, then on to other uses a barrier to sun and dark ocotillo shade held aloft on mesquite pillars as if awaiting its warrior shield and lance.

(Sandra) Sometimes we may not, you know, understand what the author, the poet is trying to say.

So we get discouraged.

(Man) With dawns and dusks as regular as a clock, as steady as time itself.

(Jodie) Lovely.

Really beautiful.

It's hard to believe that you were able to write something so powerful in such a short amount of time I was so happy with the participants today.

They were all really interested and engaged.

They asked great questions.

They had some really sharp insights about the poems.

And then the original poems that the participants wrote were really incredible.

(Woman) Where would you be today if not where you are now?

How did you get here?

Who are you?

[applause] (Woman) It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Still standing.

[applause] (Jodie) writing poetry is an opportunity for us to connect with our own humanity and to maybe find a voice inside that we didn't know was there.

Or maybe we knew it was there, but we hadn't really listened to it.

(Woman) I heard it on NPR.

We eyed the tall, gray, lifeless sticks with skepticism.

A living fence signals our desert path.

[Jazz Funk Music] (Tom) This year's Poetry in our Parks workshops will be held April 1st and 2nd in the Rincon District of Saguaro National Park East from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and advance registration is required.

Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a few stories we're working on.

(Woman) Youre just too nutsy for me dog.

The old machines like the one in front of you are 1830.

The man who invented the flatbed knitting machine turned his flatbed around and made a circular sock machine.

This one doesn't make the same clicking noise, but they make a little clicking noise.

You can hear it.

I think we just messed up that sock.

But that's okay.

It's all right.

Anyway, I could fix it (Girl) I like coming.

I get to do fun activities, have snack breaks.

We got to dissect a fish.

I just found the brain!

(Emily) I brought some rainbow trout from the Tonto Creek Hatchery, which is one of the hatcheries we have in the state.

And we're just going to do a simple dissection.

Take some otoliths out.

It's the inner ear bone of the fish theyre used to age the fish, essentially.

(Tom) Thank you for joining us here at the Tucson Wildlife Center.

I'm Tom McNamara, and we'll see you next week for Arizona Illustrated.