South32’s Communities Manager Melanie Lawson handing out school supplies for the “Jump Back to School” event in Nogales, Arizona.

South32 is a mining and metals company whose purpose is to make a difference by developing natural resources, improving people’s lives now and for generations to come. The company is trusted by its owners and partners to realize the potential of their resources.

Melanie Lawson is the Communities Manager for South32, responsible for developing relationships with the local community and developing community investment as well as other programs. Outside of her work with South32, Melanie enjoys spending time with her family outdoors. Her family loves swimming and golfing together as well as exploring new places all around Arizona.

Melanie says, “South32 supported Mat Bevel Company this year as a sponsor because it’s a unique organization that provides an educational benefit as well as an arts and culture benefit to local students. The Universe Within program is unlike any other and pushes students to explore science, engineering, and art all at once.”

South32’s Garner Lea – Senior Project Engineer, Angela Watt – Manager Underground Engineering and Pat Risner – Hermosa Mine President.

Similar to Mat Bevel Company, South32 is committed to cultivating ingenuity and inspiring people to tackle challenges with greater imagination. The Hermosa project in Patagonia, Arizona, is bringing together big imaginations, deep thinkers, problem solvers, and visionaries from across the industry, because the project has so much potential. The Hermosa project is providing South32 with the rare opportunity to consider using technology and other innovations in a way that typically isn’t done in the mining industry. Melanie says, “We’re exploring new technology and innovation as they relate to mining. It’s an open-minded approach to modernizing the way we bring metals to market.”

Melanie believes that responsible environmental management is an obvious way to make the world a better place. She says, “I know that many people don’t think responsible management of environmental impacts and mining can coexist, but I’ve experienced with South32 and other mining companies that it can.”

South32’s Melanie Lawson with her daughter at the Patagonia Volunteer Fire & Rescue Annual Steak Fry & Raffle in Patagonia.

Two of the key things that Melanie would like to pass on to future generations are access to education and economic opportunity. She says, “I want not only my own children but also the children in the communities where we work to have access to quality education, which can then open the door to economic and other opportunities.”

South32’s aim is to build a trusting and long-lasting relationship with the community and to leave a positive legacy. Partnering with Mat Bevel Company is one way that South32 supports local education and art in the local schools, which in turn makes a positive impact in the community.

South32 Hermosa Community Fund Grant Supports Production of The Universe Within Multimedia Digital Curriculum.

The Santa Cruz Foundation for the Performing Arts was founded in 2005 to promote the performing arts on behalf of the Santa Cruz County, Arizona community. Today, SCFPA brings world-class performers and local talent to the stage in Southern Arizona’s beautiful Santa Cruz Valley. Through a series of unique events, SCFPA offers fresh, exciting ways for both residents and visitors to experience chamber music in all its various forms. 

The Santa Cruz Foundation for the Performing Arts (SCFPA) is dedicated to presenting high quality live performances of traditional and classical music in Southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz Valley. For many years, SCFPA brought chamber music to Southern Arizona in area homes and historic sites. In 2017, the organization’s long range goal became a reality. The exquisite Benderly-Kendall Opera House was completed in Patagonia, Arizona. Today this state of the art recital hall is a permanent venue for future generations of concert goers.

The 2019-2020 concert series includes a variety of duo and trio ensembles that feature harp, flute, violin and piano. February concerts feature a Japanese duo on the koto and violoncello instruments, and the award-winning Newpoli Ensemble Mediterranean, comprised of musicians and dancers who meld traditional Italian folk music with Greek, Spanish and Turkish grooves. During the month of March, the Opera House hosts three University of Arizona Musicians on Tour concerts with outstanding students from the Fred Fox School of Music. The season concludes with Baroque Chamber Music and a Schumann Piano Quintet featuring former artist-in-residence Evan Kory and his colleagues, who will travel from all parts of the country and overseas to perform at the Opera House.

SCFPA Executive and Artist Director Christina Wilhelm says, “Each season we strive to maintain the highest quality musical standard bringing world-class talent to the Opera House in these intimate performances. People who attend our concerts tell us that they are enveloped by the sound and enthralled by the shared experience of wonder and amazement. Musicians and audiences thrive through a symbiotic energy exchange in which audiences respond to the performers, who, in turn, respond to the audience as they are all embraced by the sounds.

The Opera House follows the design tradition of the long and narrow 19th century salons where chamber music was first performed, like the Felix Mendelssohn Music Room in Leipzig, Germany. Acoustical science proves that those proportions—a room twice as long as it is wide—help bring unamplified direct and reflected sounds of a performance to every seat with equal volume, liveliness, and warmth.

It’s a shared mission that has inspired SCFPA to support Mat Bevel Company each year during its annual fundraiser as a sponsor. SCFPA and MBC’s work centers around providing deeply personal experiences for audiences through the performing arts. Christina explains, “We support MBC because we collaborate with like-minded organizations that value the role of creativity and the performing arts in enhancing our communities and people’s lives.”

SCFPA’s Opera House revives the traditional role that opera houses played in the formation of the West. Small town opera houses, like the one right here in Patagonia, were born of a desire to enhance the cultural status of the community. Isolated rural mining towns, especially, established opera houses as a way for residents to hear world-class musicians on tour as a much needed and immensely popular form of entertainment.

In addition to the Opera House, SCPFA has a professional, custom designed stage on wheels called the Concert Haul® that brings performers to the audience. The Concert Haul® also serves as the onsite venue for SCFPA’s series of free outdoor community concert series during the month of June.

SCFPA and MBC also share a commitment to bringing art and music into the lives of young people. A 2017 assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that national art scores in the Western part of the United States lagged well behind those of the Northeast and East Coast. Only a third of 8^th-graders in the western U.S. took an art class in 2016 year and only 17 percent played in the school band, the lowest figures of any region in the country, according this national arts assessment.

MBC’s The Universe Within uses the Surrealistic Pop Science Theater as the framework for students to learn about the science and art of sculpture, kinetic art, poetry and performance. SCFPA’s internship program introduces students to various aspects of producing live performing arts.

Mat Bevel Company thanks SCFPA for its support of the performing arts and arts education programming!

Mariposa Community Health Center’s two acre campus in Nogales features state-of-the-art facilities. The campus provides pediatric, adult medicine, Ob/Gyn, dental services and a full-service pharmacy.  The facilities are equipped with a procedure room, full service in-house lab, digital x-ray and mammography, DEXA, IV room, plus eligibility and referral offices.

Mariposa Community Health Center’s mission is to improve the health of its patients and communities by providing a patient-centered health care home that ensures access to culturally appropriate, primary care and community-based education regardless of an individual’s ability to pay.  Mariposa facilitates access to specialty care and provide services and programs that respond to community/patient needs and encourage individual responsibility for one’s health.

Accessibility is the heart of Mariposa’s mission. Ed Sicurello, Chief Executive Officer for Mariposa says, “You can have the best technology in the world, the best trained and dedicated staff in the world, but if people can’t get in your door because of economic, geographic, or cultural barriers, then you’re really not able to make a differences in people’s lives, and that is what Mariposa is all about.  When you’re truly about making a positive difference in people’s lives you go the extra mile.” 

Making a difference in people’s lives is what inspired Mariposa to support Mat Bevel Company as a sponsor this year during the “Escape Velocity” campaign. Field trips to the Museum Of Kinetic Art and The Universe Within worldbuilding curriculum inspire students to tackle life’s challenges with much greater imagination.

Mariposa’s Medical and Dental Center serves the Rio Rico community.  The clinic provides adult medicine, pediatric, integrated behavioral health and dental services, plus eligibility and referral offices.

Mariposa Community Health Center was founded in 1980 in response to the tremendous unmet medical needs in the small, rural county of Santa Cruz located in Southern Arizona.  Initially established as a clinical division of the Santa Cruz County Health Department, the vision was to establish a unique model of care that integrated primary medical care with traditional public health services.  The Health Center was originally staffed by a pediatrician and nurse practitioner and was located in a small building near downtown Nogales.

Since its founding, Mariposa has become the largest and most comprehensive provider of medical, dental, disease prevention and health promotion services in southeast Arizona, with locations in Nogales, Rio Rico, Tubac and Patagonia. As a patient-centered health care home, Mariposa’s integrated approach to patient care focuses on addressing all the factors involved with achieving and maintaining a healthy, productive life.  As a one-stop shopping model of care delivery, Mariposa provides comprehensive primary medical and dental care supported by lab, digital x-ray, and mammography, ultrasound, telemedicine, a full-service pharmacy, an integrated behavioral health program, plus an extensive health promotion/disease prevention department. Over 320 dedicated staff members support MCHC and its mission of service in the community.

Mariposa’s Tubac Regional Health Center opened in March 2016. The clinic has three exam rooms and is staffed by a full-time family nurse practitioner and a family medicine physician.  

Mariposa’s Community Health Services Department, Platicamos Salud, is nationally recognized for deploying innovative, community-based healthy strategies in Santa Cruz County to make a positive difference in patients’ lives, as well as the community at large. The community-based wellness and education programs are related to chronic disease, nutrition and fitness, prenatal education and home visiting, neighborhood revitalization, case management and assistance with a community support group, youth leadership training, plus numerous other services in collaboration with the schools and other community partners. 

Mariposa’s External Communications Coordinator, Marco Leon says, “It is important that Mariposa supports all Santa Cruz County schools and programs that engage students. It is our hope that these young minds will utilize the skills learned in Mat Bevel Company programs as they move into the future, regardless of what area of focus they journey into.” 

Mat Bevel Company thanks Mariposa for its support of community-based programs that promote student education, growth and wellbeing.