Lending a Hand: Binding Community Bonds at the Tucson Festival of Books

Woman and young girl reading together, symbolizing Tucson literacy empowerment.
Empowering Tucson's Future Through Literacy: A Moment of Shared Learning.

In just a few weeks, the Tucson Festival of Books will be on the U of A Mall, bringing 100 ,000 plus people into our community, and we could use your help. My name is Tom Heath. I am Vice President, Senior Loan Officer, and I lead the Mortgage Guidance Group at Nova Home Loans.

As many of you know, I’ve been a volunteer with Festival of Books for about 15 years since its inception, and the impact to our community is immense. Not only is it a free event that draws people from all over the world, it brings in world-class authors, vendors, exhibitors. It’s also an opportunity to support literacy in our community because the proceeds from the festival are donated back into local Tucson literacy efforts, $2 million plus over the last 15 years. So how do you have a free festival and donate this much money into our community? You rely heavily on volunteers, and that’s what I’m asking you to consider.

I happen to oversee a group called the Operations Troubleshooters. These are individuals that will deal with a variety of situations that come up. We monitor all kinds of things from tripping hazards like a loose extension cord all the way up through medical emergencies and any type of security issues. We have an entire team of professionals behind us. We don’t have to solve those problems, we just have to be on alert and report those.

My role is Operations Troubleshooter. If this is something that you think you might be interested in and if you can work with people with a varying degree of personalities, you’re willing to do some walking, explore the campus for just a few hours on Saturday the 9th or Sunday the 10th, then click the email link just over my shoulder. It’ll take you to the Festival Books Operations Troubleshooters email address. Just say, hey, I’m interested in learning more, and we will respond with some details and a link so that you can sign up for one of those shifts. I really appreciate your help. In the meantime, if you’re out there this weekend working on real estate and you need some help, Trevor and I are available. Just reach out to us for pre-quals, questions on any type of loan programs, whatever we can help you with. Thanks so much.