Being There : Staff, Students, Parents Rally Around Fullerton School Booster

FULLERTON — Sylvia Zapata Martinez is the kind of mom who seems to be everywhere at once.

If she’s not making life better at the elementary school that two of her four children attend, she’s cutting paper into dolls at Brownie meetings. If she’s not at Brownie meetings, she’s out helping build a playground. Or talking with teachers to help design a new curriculum. Or organizing a rummage sale to help the poor.

So when the single mother disappeared from the local scene last week and entered the hospital with a sudden, serious illness, people noticed.

From Valencia Park Elementary School, where Martinez has helped build the Parent-Teacher Assn. over the past six years into its strongest incarnation ever, to the offices of businesses that Martinez has worked with on charitable causes, to City Hall, which just last week gave Martinez a community service award, word went out: The woman who could always be counted on to help those in need needed help herself.

Since Martinez, 37, checked into an Anaheim hospital with meningitis on Thursday, teachers and parents at the elementary school have raised more than $300 and donated crates of food to keep the good Samaritan’s children fed.

Friends have taken over chauffeuring her teenagers to one activity or another, while parents who always counted on Martinez to wade through PTA paperwork have been tackling it themselves.

On Wednesday, the school’s principal and assistant principal strode smilingly into Martinez’s hotel room with boxes of lovingly drawn and painted get-well cards from hundreds of students.

“When you have somebody like this who’s involved and takes time and does that extra step, she’s a priceless model for everyone,” said Valencia Park Principal Marilyn White. “We just want to give something back.”

Even tissue manufacturer Kimberly-Clark, which donated money and expertise to Martinez and other mothers to install a playground near the school last month, is chipping in--giving crates of its products to the school for a raffle to benefit Martinez.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine anything like this ever happening. It’s like one big family,” Martinez said, crying in her darkened hospital room filled with flowers from city and school district officials.

“Why not? Why not?” one of her friends, Beth Lamb, broke in. “You’re there for everyone else. For hours and hours.”

Phyllis Kelly, whose daughter, Megan, 10, was visiting too, clasped Martinez’s hand.

“It’s just that we love you so much,” Kelly said.

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In the part of Fullerton where Martinez lives, parents who volunteer like she does are not found on every block.

A lower-income neighborhood heavily populated by Latino and Asian immigrants, it is an area where parents work long hours that keep them from getting involved in their kids’ schools. Some, according to Martinez, shy away because they are intimidated by government institutions.

But since Martinez began rallying friends, neighbors and, eventually, strangers, to the school’s aid, the PTA has grown from about four active members to more than a dozen. That’s still tiny for a school of more than 1,000 students, but from all accounts, Martinez does the work of another dozen at least.

Having gotten the PTA back on its feet, Martinez didn’t stop. She doesn’t speak Spanish, but she plunged ahead to organize Spanish-speaking mothers with children at the school. When a neighborhood child was hit and killed by a truck this summer, Martinez rallied, bringing in donations of food and money for the family.

“She’s a single mom who somehow volunteers more than 40 hours a week to our community. She just seems to do everything,” Kelly said. On Wednesday, Kelly and Megan decorated the walls of Martinez’s hospital room with get-well cards, while a bevy of friends surrounded the PTA president’s bed.

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Martinez has not always felt surrounded by friends. The neighborhood whirlwind is once widowed and is separated from her second husband. Jobless, she lives with her children, ages 5, 6, 12 and 17, on Social Security and on child support from her second husband.

Money is so tight that friends she made at the school surprised her children with Christmas presents last year, when Martinez couldn’t afford them herself.

But more often than not, Martinez is the one reaching out. Without all the activity, life would get lonely in her house, Martinez said.

“It gives me something positive to focus on,” Martinez said. “I can’t imagine myself staying at home. I’ve got to let these kids know that they count, that they mean something to us that, well, that just because they don’t have a lot that we still want them to have chances in life.”

Martinez is on the mend these days. The meningitis--a viral infection in the lining of the brain--has been treated with intravenous antibiotics. Painkillers have deadened the intense headaches that accompany the infection. Martinez hopes to leave the hospital today. And once she is off the antibiotics, doctors tell her she can expect a full recovery.

When she comes home, her friends say she won’t go hungry. So much food has been donated to the family that they are running out of cupboard space.

For the moment, Martinez is still covered by her estranged husband’s health insurance. But there are the bills to pay.

Her friends at the PTA said they’ll find the money if need be.