(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, meet the happy residents of the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary.

(Mary) He'd been beat up multiple times by dogs and you see his ears are gone.

He's totally recovered, as you see, and he's so sweet.

(Tom) A repair cafe keeps electronics working and out of the landfill.

(Rocky) It's wonderful to be able to look at something and say, "I can fix that."

(Tom) And addressing mental health disparities in Southern Arizona.

(Amber) We do not have resources here in our county for mental health, domestic abuse, the shelters and things that are not here.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, since the 1980s, pot-bellied pigs have grown in popularity as pets.

And yeah, while they're cute, they can be a lot of work and they have their own set of unique needs.

In fact, some owners just give up on them.

So enter the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary in Marana, whose goal is to end the suffering of pot-bellied pigs and provide permanent safe housing for them.

[ PIG SNORTS ] (Mary Schanz) What keeps me going is the happy pigs.

I just have to walk around and see them, and pet them along the way.

Hi, kids!

Horatio, Riley!

Come on, fratties!

Ed!

You know, here are all these boys, and... (laughs) You know.

So they have to have their own little frat house.

Here he comes.

Here comes Ed.

That's the frat kids, at least one of them.

You see, we don't, we don't party too much anymore, we just sleep.

My name is Mary Schantz, and uh...

I'm with the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary.

I'm one of the co-founders and president of the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary.

[ CARRIAGE ROLLING ] Our mission is to rescue abused and neglected or unwanted pigs, and to also work to control the populations by spaying and neutering.

People need to do their homework before they get a pig, and they need to have a proper place to keep them and to house them, and understand exactly what they are getting into.

Pigs are herd animals, and they really like the companionship of other pigs.

This is what we like.

Every morning I see them out here together on their bed, enjoying the sun.

They've become sweethearts.

We've been able to grow to about 680 pigs at this time, on site.

We really go out of our way to make it the best life they can have.

This is Assisted Living, A.L.

And this is one of our big boys.

He's one of our stars of this field.

This is Andre.

He's been around a while, Hi, Andre.

He's had multiple surgeries, He's been neutered.

He's had two tummy tucks.

He's had three eye adjustments Because he was so fat when he came in, he could barely function.

And you can see, he's lost a lot of weight.

He's pretty saggy.

This is Bella.

She lived in a horrible, filthy room and had these feet so twisted around she couldn't begin to walk.

Hi, honey.

[ BELLA SNORTS ] ♪ PEACEFUL MUSIC We feed and care for them, they get medical care.

They have companions to live with, they have blankets, and in the summer, wallows and swimming pools.

This is Bubbles.

He's blind.

Tomahawk!

Come here, honey.

You gonna wake up?

Yeah, I know.

Here, I'll give you a cookie.

He was found down the south side of town.

He was in horrible condition.

He had been beat up multiple times by dogs.

And you see his ears are gone.

And he was very lame.

He has a deformed front leg He's totally recovered, as you see.

And he's so sweet.

He's been so mistreated.

He's really one of our success stories for sure.

It would be a lot easier if we just combined everybody But there's pigs of different capacities.

[ PIG SNORTS ] We have to try to separate them according to their health and their condition and their age and all that kind of thing.

So we've ended up with 29 fields.

And they all have bowls with their names on them.

And their foods are prepared here and meds are put in and water.

We put the meds in peanut butter sandwiches.

So there's a lot of peanut butter used here.

And a lot of bread.

We also use fig Newtons.

And sometimes we even go so far as to use like a Twinkie or a strawberry roll.

They eat a variety of foods.

We have 300 mashes that we make for the pigs.

It's grain.

And then we add pumpkin and bran.

[ MUNCHING ] (Lisa Lang) We fund everything 99% donation based.

Our donors are wonderful.

They're there for us all the time.

It's true.

We would not be here without our donors.

It makes it happen.

Makes it happen.

And then we came up with the idea last year to start a Painting with Pigs event.

(paint instructor) So really excited to have you all here.

This is our fifth time painting with pigs.

(Mary) It brings people out, it's a fun thing to do, it lets people meet some of the pigs because we have pigs running out all day while the are here.

(participant) We painted pigs.

So I literally found it yesterday And we were going to hang out anyway because we're best friends.

We have matching tattoos.

We do.

And I heard there's going to be another pig friend coming to join us pretty soon.

I like Star Wars, so I I decided since we were doing a night sky thing I would make a Death Star into it and then I'd make my pig some sort of Star Wars theme.

Darth Bacon.

Please don't sue me Disney!

[ LAUGHTER ] And there's a tour after.

Yeah.

So we get to go pet pigs.

Yeah, we're excited.

Tell us when to smile.

Alright, everyone ready?

In three, two, one.

Yay!

Amazing.

Thank you guys so much for coming!

Everyday items from small appliances to clothing have become more affordable over time, but there's less longevity as companies tend to focus on profits over durability.

Enter the Tucson Repair Cafe, where community members can bring their broken items, have them fixed for free, and gain valuable skills to use in their own lives.

no ironing, and no glue.

Now you'll qualify for the wholesale discount price of only- -coming at you right between the ears with Hit Clips.

Future proof your video collections collections with new combo discs.

Everything else is obsolete.

I just bought this.

Alright, let me try.

-No get your own!

My kids would love it.

Meanwhile talking on your cell phone.

Hi, Billy Mays- ♪ COMMERCIAL JINGLE Just when you think you have the latest computer, you don't.

[ TELEVISION STATIC ] (Rocky) The current system that we have is the single stream of extract, create, use, and then waste.

So you take the resources from the environment and then it becomes a product.

You use the product and then it's thrown away when it's broken or no longer used.

There's something called planned obsolescence.

Your iPhone is great.

Even if you have a model that's four to five years old, it still works.

It does everything that you need it to do.

(Stephen) Products are designed for sale, not for long-term use.

It helps with sales, but it doesn't help you with the elegance that you might have had with a better product to start with.

♪ SYNTHESIZER FUNK MUSIC (Rocky) Usually you would want to have the best product and then people would buy your product and that would be it.

Now we're seeing products that are made with lower quality that are meant to die out within a certain amount of time, so then you have to buy another one.

We just don't see the extraction cost and the landfill cost.

Recycling isn't the shining beacon of environmentalism as it's promised to be.

There's studies that show only nine to ten percent of all recyclable materials are actually recycled.

It doesn't have to be this way, but basically there's so much more than just reduce, reuse, recycle.

There's repair, there's rot, there's so many different ways to help the environment.

We can do something better.

We can do something different.

We were both in the Zero Waste Committee at Sustainable Tucson.

The chair of the Zero Waste Committee at the time, he said, "Rocky, Stephen, go create the Tucson Repair Cafe."

And we did.

There is an international repair cafe organization.

They started in the Netherlands.

Now they've spread all over the world.

We were the first one in Arizona.

We did a pilot program with Xerocraft, which is where we still do our events.

So Xerocraft is a makerspace downtown and they just have so many tools and a great space to repair.

(Peter) People are usually pessimistic because they're like, "How is this going to get fixed?"

And so seeing their reaction when it's like, "Oh my gosh, it's working again," they're just really excited.

We have people come in and if you fix something, they'll say, "Oh, thank you for fixing it."

And I always say, "Thank you for bringing it in."

You gave us something to play with.

(Peter) So I discovered the repair cafe when I was living in Toulouse, France.

And I went to several of their meetups and volunteered, which was super cool.

But then I kind of suddenly moved back here and I wanted to start it up.

So I was kind of looking for who to talk to in the city.

(Jim) I never really heard of a repair cafe until I moved here about three years ago and started working with them maybe two, two and a half years ago.

And it's a great idea.

So I moved back here in September of 2021.

And by November, I think 13th, we were able to have our first event.

(Rocky) On our website, we have a pre-arrival instructions thing that you can look at to make sure that you have the most successful time coming to the repair cafe.

Oh, look at that.

- And heat.

- Oh, it feels great.

The things that are locked behind proprietary hardware and software, that's really hard for us to fix.

If people can find a guide or a manual or a tutorial, that really helps because the internet is a fantastic resource.

We track the weight of the item so we know how much weight we're taking out of the landfill and then the price of it to replace so we know how much we're saving.

And then we assign you to a repairer.

And then the repairer diagnosis the problem usually takes apart your item and then fixes it in front of you.

We don't like people to drop their items off because we have such a strong educational tenant as part of being a nonprofit.

(Alicia) I brought in a Playstation and it was overheating.

It's pretty expensive to just kind of throw out.

And so I decided to try to fix it.

As soon as I heard they were doing this, I thought this is absolutely wonderful.

This is a five CD dischanger that I've had for God knows how long.

And I was really hoping that it would be resurrected, but it's not and we don't really know why.

I like that my son was able to sit and watch him and learn.

He was able to fix it, so hopefully everything goes good.

The value in trying to get people who are bringing in items to take part at least in the repairs is empowering the community, trying to spread that kind of lost DIY knowledge.

It's especially cool when children come and they're just like diving in with you and want to do stuff and you're like "wow."

I hate planned obsolescence.

It drives me crazy.

Society does have a waste problem and especially for the most, the more costly items.

The concept of just buying new, buying new and having more trash and everything else and things like this is just going to be sitting in a junk pile.

And I don't like that.

I'd rather keep things going when I can.

♪ AMBIENT PIANO MUSIC Our volunteers are the heart and soul of the organization and they really perform.

We can't do anything without our volunteers.

We're so grateful for them because they're all just stellar engineers.

They really know what they're doing.

(Peter) Growing up, my dad owned a camera shop and so we'd always have stuff around cameras or lenses.

I think pretty young I was already trying to take things apart.

I did a much better job at having lots of pieces than putting it back together because I worked on one sewing machine at home that I bought from a thrift store.

I became like the sewing machine person.

People bring in really old sewing machines and so it means a lot to them as well as just being like a finely crafted item that they want to keep and restore.

I spent a lot of my years in business as a salesman, but I did a lot of repairs as well over the last 50 years.

I've always been interested in how something works.

I've been very inquisitive and I think most of the repairers here feel the same way.

Since everybody here is a volunteer, to come here four hours every month and work on somebody else's stuff for nothing means you must love doing it.

Convenience is really the enemy of so many environmental movements.

As the generations have gone on, we've walked away from getting it repaired and having a high quality thing that can always be repaired and we've walked away from that to just get a new one on Amazon.

It's wonderful to be able to look at something and say, "I can fix that."

One of the things that we really are hoping to tie into a local circular economy is the fact that people, number one, don't have to send out things out to repair or buy new ones that are produced halfway across the world.

They can use stuff locally and then also they have the opportunity to, I think, have a little more interesting life because they're learning skills that can apply not only to fixing an appliance, for example, but maybe to doing something to redo their home.

We're hoping it leads to a more local neighborhood kind of feeling as well as the saving the environment part of it.

♪ SMOOTH POP BEAT PLAYS ♪ (Tom) To learn more about the Tucson Repair Cafe and see upcoming dates visit their website at tucsonrepaircafe.com SEAHEC, the Southeastern Arizona Health Education Center, was formed back in 1985 to address barriers to accessing mental health care in rural Arizona, but now with a six million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health, health coalitions from four counties are partnering to find long-term solutions with input from the people who live there.

(Narrator) Mental health disparities in rural Arizona presents a significant challenge.

In the southeast counties of Cochise, Santa Cruz, Graham and Greenlee, people face unique socioeconomic and infrastructural barriers to accessing adequate mental health care.

For SEAHEC, the Southeast Arizona Health Education Center, addressing these barriers has been the core of their mission since 1985.

- And my goal was to get them home safely and to get them home well.

Now, a $6 million National Institutes of Health grant will fund a 5-10 year community research project to identify and address the lack in resources in these counties.

(Pablo) The project's name is Proyecto Juntos.

(Erin) We have a long history of health workforce development.

We go to every county and we do focus groups with the community.

They are the eyes.

They know what is lacking, what is working for them.

I'm the lead on Cochise County.

(Narrator) Cochise is the largest of the counties.

For a population of over 125,000, it has just 113 mental or behavioral health professionals.

(Pablo) For Cochise County, it's the lack of services, the legal status.

There's a lot of immigration component in Cochise.

The other day, it was an accident, and police took one hour to go to the accident.

So one hour.

This obviously this person passed because he didn't receive the services he needed to survive.

(Erin) Graham and Greenlee County would be the same thing it's the lack of services.

(Narrator) Graham, with over 37,000 residents, has only 27 mental health professionals, while Greenlee, the smallest of the counties, with a population of over 9,000, has just one social worker.

Both Graham and Greenlee have no psychiatric workforce.

(Erin) When we held our focus group, we heard a lot from the actual participants, 14 people there.

Almost half of them had a personal experience with mental health or behavioral health.

And the fact that they had to travel outside of Graham County to like Tucson or Phoenix to get any kind of services was the big problem there.

(Lupita) Here in Nogales, there's a lot of care coordination issues.

(Narrator) Santa Cruz, with a population larger than Graham County, of almost 50,000, has even fewer mental health professionals, with just 19.

During our focus groups we had over like a year of a waiting list for an intake up in Tucson for behavioral health and then the transportation comes after.

Once they get that appointment do they speak the proper language?

(Narrator) One of SEAHEC's programs is Project Nourish, partnering with local agencies in Graham and Greenlee County during the pandemic to address food insecurities.

Relationships like these has served as an entry point in identifying the major gaps and resources in these areas.

(Lupita) What I believe makes SEAHEC different is that we go where the people are.

Here at Duncan Food Pantries they have been very welcoming for the past years.

(Amber) By the beginning of 2020 is when we opened here with our full site and a full-fledged food bank and it ended up being perfect timing because COVID hit.

Two years ago we were approached by United Way, noting the need for a food bank in Clifton.

There was nothing, and so we went ahead and took on that too so we've been doing that about for almost three years now.

(Lupita) We're providing information with local resources for diabetes education classes here in your community, heart health education.

We are providing some healthy recipes based on the donations that they will be given out to the community from vegetables, fruits, and we provide all of our material, It's rental assistance.

They've also requested like heart health information, chronic disease prevention.

(Erin) There's also some tips on how to protect your heart and keep your heart healthy.

When you start going to car to car you're more one-on-one.

People tend to open up.

I remember talking to somebody about a family member of theirs having substance use problems and knowing that there wasn't too many local resources we made sure that the next time we came we had that information available.

(Lupita) Each community we work in it's unique it's very very different.

We first come shadow and learn from them.

(Amber) We run about 800 people in the town, maybe around 1200 with surrounding areas.

The main industries are farming and ranching and the mine, the mine up in Morenci about 45 minutes north, it does provide us the largest employer in the county.

The second largest is Greenlee County government itself.

(Amber) The challenges of a rural community are that if you're not with the mine and you're going to have a really hard time finding a good paying job.

Along with the generational pride in families, we also see generational poverty.

We do not have resources here in our county for mental health, for domestic abuse, the shelters and things, they're not here.

You're lucky if you can get into Safford.

(Narrator) Across these four counties, a critical shortage of mental health professionals exist.

A severe lack of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and counselors is pervasive.

This scarcity is compounded by vast geological distances, making access to already limited resources even more difficult.

(Lupita) Our meetings are open and as we go, we try to see who the partner is, the organization, invite them so we can start working together.

We invite, for example, ADOT to our meetings.

They see not just the transportation, but having a better internet or, you know, an extra tower there, or being able to provide that will also help.

(Narrator) Transportation barriers, lack of broadband internet for telehealth services and the stigma surrounding mental health further exasperate the problem.

The consequences of these disparities are significant.

Higher rates of suicide, substance abuse and untreated mental health conditions are reported in rural areas compared to urban centers.

Limited resources also strain law enforcement and emergency services, who often become de facto first responders for mental health crises.

(Lupita) But the main focus of this is to actually identify all the services that we have.

(Lupita) We have organizations from law enforcement, academics, other nonprofit organizations, behavioral health services and our local clinics.

(Pablo) Each organization found a champion of the community or several champions and we set up the focus groups.

So all of us together are able to meet by-monthly.

- The goal of this work group is, as part of the Santa Cruz County Drug-Free Community Coalition Subcommittee, cobinas, the Binational Health Council of Ambos Nogales and the local HERA, which is... - And literally what it is, is a group of people who are working towards the same goal with mental health and behavioral health.

- Do you want us to go over here?

(Narrator) Listening sessions are a crucial part of Proyecto Juntos, offering a wealth of valuable information and insights.

- We have access to child care that was mentioned.

We have eligibility to Wi-Fi or internet.

We had a voucher that was going around when the pandemic was at its strongest and that recently expired.

A lot of people are using hotspots and stuff to power their children's home devices and all of that to get their homework done.

- There's people out here that are working that are in AHCCCS.

They make $1 more than what they're supposed to and then get kicked off the program.

Okay, so how can we change that so that way that stressor isn't on the people that are working?

(Brenda) We know that we have community members who sadly are falling through their cracks and we need policy change and advocacy to make those gradual changes and it doesn't happen in one year.

(Emily) This is also why it's a good strength that we have multiple rural counties joining together because oftentimes mental health is not at the table in policy and if we have multiple rural counties joining effort and bringing data to the table it's harder to ignore.

(Narrator) Increased funding for mental health services, recruitment and retention incentives for professionals in rural areas, expansion of telehealth infrastructure, community-based mental health programs and destigmatization campaigns are crucial steps.

Understanding the unique needs of each county, including its demographics, economic base and cultural context, is essential for developing effective and sustainable solutions.

(Pablo) One of the main things we say to the community is, "This project is for five years and it's going to take ten years."

We are not going to address the barriers like next month or in a year.

Exactly.

We're going to take a lot of time because we need time to address those things.

Any initiatives, anything that's going to happen, it's going to be led by the community.

It's not going to be led by us, it's not going to be led by NIH, the government.

No, it's going to be the actual community.

The way to also make this program sustainable is definitely connecting with the right people, which are the local organizations there and the people.

We want to empower those counties to have this sustainable and hopefully after ten years, you know, they will be feeling strong to keep this program going with other types of funding.

(Narrator) This first phase of Proyecto Juntos serves as a starting point for a deeper examination of mental health disparities in southeastern Arizona.

It's a call to action for policy makers, health care providers, community leaders and residents to collaborate to build a more equitable and supportive system for the struggling in isolation.

♪ GENTLE SYNTH MUSIC [ BACKGROUND CHATTER ] (Tom) Like what you're seeing on Arizona Illustrated?

Then connect with us on social media for even more Arizona Illustrated.

Like, follow, and subscribe to Arizona Illustrated on Facebook, Instagram, and X.

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

(Brenda)I've probably taken kids on literally about 100 field trips with Act One.

And the students are always like, "Where are we going next?"

We saw a lot of what the native people, how different our lives are compared to theirs.

We get to see several different perspectives of art, and it really does show that art is everywhere.

A long time ago, there was a woman from across the canyon.

It helps to remind us that we're talking about human beings here, you know, who have feelings and hopes and dreams and fears.

And we can see all that in their art.

Pueblo people as well as the Jemez Pueblo people.

I think dance is a really good way to project the motion because it's an art form.

Thank you for joining us from here at Sweetwater Wetlands.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you again next week.