Celestino Fernández is a UA sociology professor, a PPEP Tech Charter School board member and president of PPEP Rural Business Development Corp. He says he wants to "give back ... in any way I can serve."

Chris Richards / arizona daily star

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Forty years ago, John David Arnold gave classes to migrant farmworkers in the Santa Cruz Valley in a 1957 Chevrolet school bus known as "La Tortuga," the tortoise.

Through education, farmworkers could leave the fields for better-paying jobs, homes and greater opportunities for their children, said Arnold, founder and chief executive officer of Portable Practical Educational Preparation Inc., known as Project PPEP.

The nonprofit organization now has a staff of 550 and a $30 million annual budget from government funding and private foundations.

Project PPEP still serves rural communities in Southern and Central Arizona. It also has branched out into operating 12 public charter high schools, a virtual academy that teaches more than 4,000 students through the Internet, the construction of houses and the operation of 20 group homes for developmentally disabled adults, and has provided $20 million in loans to more than 1,000 businesses in the state.

"In some way, we have honored the dreams and hopes of the original migrant bracero farmworkers who dreamed of a better way of life," said Arnold.

For these reasons, the organization today is holding a 40th anniversary celebration that is free and open to the public at the Tucson Convention Center.

Families, students and business owners are among those who will celebrate with the organization that helped improve their lives.

Among the business owners are Gabriel and Veronica Sandoval, who received two microbusiness loans from PPEP totaling $22,000 to expand Tacaná Designs. The husband and wife make religious icons, mostly crosses, and promote their work at 30 artist-juried shows in the Southwest and West Coast a year.

"We have clients throughout the United States who order our one-of-a-kind pieces, which my wife mostly designs," said Sandoval, who quit teaching and works at Tacaná Designs full time.

"We are doing very well, raising our children and working from home. We have more time to spend as a family," he said.

Another person who will be at the celebration in spirit is Amanda Lujan, 17, a graduate of PPEP Tech's Celestino Fernández Learning Center at 1840 E. Benson Highway.

"I don't think I would have made it to graduation if it wasn't for PPEP Tech. Before, I was attending Amphitheater High School but I needed more help in algebra, geometry and history. I just wasn't getting it," Lujan said.

She then attended the center's night school and worked during the day at Tucson Mall, graduating one year early. Lujan will begin classes at Central Arizona Community College, and later transfer to Pima Community College. Eventually, she hopes to attend the University of Arizona and become a nurse.

For Celestino Fernández, a UA sociology professor and a PPEP Tech Charter School board member and president of the PPEP Rural Business Development Corp., this celebration is close to his heart.

He immigrated with his family from Santa Inés, Michoacan, when he was 9 and worked picking vegetables, apples, prunes and walnuts in Santa Rosa, Calif., about an hour north of San Francisco.

Fernández's father was a bracero during World War II, and was contracted to work in Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. He later came to the U.S. illegally and worked in the Los Angeles area before heading up to Northern California, where the owner of the apple orchards helped him become a legal resident.

The elder Fernández then migrated his family, and Celestino recalls working in the summers from sunrise to sunset in the orchards, and heading there after classes during the school year.

"I literally have stretch marks on my back from all the bending I did for years," said Fernández, who worked in agriculture through high school. That labor and encouragement from his parents motivated him to excel in school, and scholarships paid his way at Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State University and Stanford University, where he received a master's in 1974 and a doctorate in 1976, both in sociology.

Fernández began teaching at the UA in 1976. He also served as vice president for undergraduate academic affairs, vice president for academic outreach and international affairs, and then executive vice president and provost of the UA's Arizona International Campus.

"Education for myself and my siblings created opportunities for us to work in professional environments. That is what PPEP has tried to do — give individuals a part of the American dream by being able to advance through education.

"I feel very grateful in terms of my career, and it is important for me to give back to the community in any way that I can serve," Fernández said.