Jennifer’s Story, Maria’s Story… and Yours

Jennifer wasn’t looking for a fight.

She was just a mom in Scottsdale, sitting at her kitchen table on a Friday afternoon while her daughter finished homework. Like she had for the past two years, she opened an email called Five Minutes for Families and skimmed through it.

That week’s edition warned about elementary schools slipping LGBT messaging into “neutral” lessons.

Her first reaction?

“That would never happen here.”

Fast forward to Tuesday.

Her eight-year-old walks in the door:

“Mom, we watched a video about the Tuskegee Airmen today… but at the end it showed pictures about LGBT in the military.”

That email wasn’t theoretical anymore. It was in her kid’s classroom.

Because Jennifer had actually read that Friday email, she wasn’t frozen. She already knew her next steps.

• She contacted the school.

• Connected with other parents.

• Filed a report through the Empower Hotline.

Within weeks, parents in that district had new rights to review supplemental materials.

Her daughter—and hundreds of other kids—got a layer of protection because one mom didn’t just feel concerned. She was informed, resourced, and ready.

Now look at Maria.

Different city, same pressure.

Down in Tucson, Maria watched her school district roll out new curriculum that flat-out contradicted what she was teaching her kids about biology, gender, and truth.

She felt outnumbered. Outvoted. Powerless.

Then a friend forwarded her something many people scroll past: the Arizona Voter Guide.

That night, Maria sat down and worked through it. Not just headlines—every school board candidate, every position. She could see, in plain language, who would defend parental rights and who would double down on the policies she opposed.

For the first time in months, she wasn’t guessing. She wasn’t voting blind.

On election day, she voted with clarity—and then sent the Voter Guide to her entire small group.

Three of the five candidates she supported won.

Within six months, that “hopeless” curriculum? Reversed.

Maria’s kids—and thousands of others—weren’t abstract talking points anymore. They were protected by actual, local decisions… because one mom opened a PDF and did something with it.

Now zoom out.

Jennifer’s story started with one email.

Maria’s story started with one voter guide.

None of this was magic. It was information plus action.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most of us have access to the same kinds of tools… and we ignore them.

We don’t open the email.

We don’t read the guide.

We don’t click the link, learn the issue, show up, or share.

Meanwhile, school boards, legislators, and D.C. power-brokers are already planning for 2026 like it’s war. Policies around your kids, your faith, your freedoms—they’re being drafted, negotiated, and weaponized while most families are just trying to survive another busy week.

So why share Jennifer and Maria’s stories on the BAZ blog?

Because this is the pattern:

• Those who are informed shape the future.

• Those who are distracted get shaped by it.

In Arizona, tools like:

• Five Minutes for Families

• The Arizona Voter Guide

• Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) updates, alerts, and resources

…are not “nice extras.” They are how ordinary families stay in the fight without burning out.

You don’t have to attend every meeting or become a full-time activist. But you do need to stop pretending that what lands in your inbox doesn’t matter.

Here’s the point:

If you care about what your kids see in class…

If you care about who sets policy for your school, your city, your state…

If you care about whether Arizona becomes a place where families can actually thrive…

Then you can’t afford to be passive anymore.

What to do next

This week, do at least one of these:

• Find and subscribe to a trustworthy family-policy email (if you’re in Arizona, that includes CAP’s Five Minutes for Families).

• Look up your local voter guides—school board, city, county, state. Bookmark them.

• Share one resource with a friend, your small group, or another parent who’s quietly worried but doesn’t know where to start.

• Learn one concrete action path (like the Empower Hotline) so that the day something crosses the line in your district, you aren’t scrambling.

Jennifer didn’t wait until the damage was worse.

Maria didn’t let confusion paralyze her.

They got informed, they used the tools in front of them, and the trajectory of their kids’ schools changed.

Your future—and your children’s future—will be shaped by the people who bother to read, research, and respond.

Make sure you’re one of them.