So the 12-year-old seventh-grader at Totem Middle School joined a program to help map out her future.

“It was hard to focus,” especially in reading and math, she said.

So she joined the Minorities Achievement Program at the Marysville YMCA three years ago. She’s now getting A’s and B’s as she gets help during the 30-minute homework sessions from peers and teachers in the MAPS program.

Mackenzie admitted that if she was home, she’d be eating and watching TV.

“I wouldn’t be doing my homework,” she said.

MacKenzie is one of about 1,000 students who have been helped by MAPS since it started in town about a decade ago.

Kyle Kinoshita, executive director of learning and teaching for the Marysville School District, said students meet at Marysville-Pilchuck High School and the YMCA each week where they meet role models and talk about life after high school.

Nellie Glowaski, who works with the middle schools MAPS students, said she enjoys setting an example for the kids.

“I like engaging with the teens in conversation — interacting and being a role model for the kids. It’s meaningful to come to work every day and be an important part of their life,” the senior at the University of Washington said.

Craig Chambers, the local MAPS director, said they meet in the old food bank next to the Y in what is now called the Youth Development Center.

“It’s a place for kids to grow,” he said.

JJ Frank, associate executive director of the YMCA, said MAPS started out only being for minorities, but last year it expanded to help all children in poverty, too.

“It’s about overcoming barriers to the achievement gap, and college readiness and poverty plays a big part of that, too,” Frank said, adding that MAPS has helped local 50 students financially through college scholarships.

“The mission is to motivate and support students of color and immigrant students in poverty,” he said.

He added that 80 percent of the students are on free or reduced lunches and 70 percent of their parents haven’t graduated from college, some even from high school. He said MAPS connects kids to college and helps them reach their dreams. But MAPS also helps students learn to give back, as they volunteer every month.

“When people give to you it’s important you learn to give back,” Frank said.

Ada Garza, one of the MAPS teachers, said, “This is a free program from the community, so when they learn to give then they can receive as well.”

Diana Orbeoadze, a senior at M-P, and Ivana Garza, an eighth-grader at 10th Street School, said they enjoy giving back.

Ivana, 13, said the middle schoolers paint over graffiti on the trails near the library, pick up trash at the high schools and help the food bank. “You feel more involved,” she said.

Orbeoadze has helped the food bank and with Martin Luther King Jr. events. At one such event she said she learned an important message from a girl in a wheelchair.

“She could not walk or talk, but she did a painting and had the greatest smile,” Orbeoadze said. “I realized I take things for granted. I appreciate things” more now.

Many MAPS students appreciate different aspects of the program.

Orbeoadze said she is thankful how MAPS helped her figure out how to apply for financial aid and other things related to college. She started with MAPS six years ago in a Russian-Ukraine group.

“It’s like a second home to me,” she said, adding she would “live here in the summer.”

She said the program has helped her become more “culturally aware. It brings us together and helps us grow to be better people,” she said.

Yaqueline “Jackie” Carretero, a junior at M-P, started with MAPS two years ago and said it has helped her “step out of her comfort zone.”

She’s always loved the ocean, but never thought college would be available to her. But through the program last summer she was able to work with ORCA. She got to go out on a boat into the Puget Sound, collect samples of plankton, and then study them back at a lab. Now she’s confident that that’s what she’d like to do for a job.

Mackenzie appreciates not only the help she gets with homework, but also that she gets to hang out with friends, play games, play on computers and go outside. She also loves the field trips, going to places such as the corn maze, aquatic center, Wild Waves, Sounders games, etc.

“We meet a lot of new people,” she said.

Ivana has been coming to MAPS for three years. Her mom works with the program, and Ivana saw how “MAPS impacted them. I wanted to be part of the MAP family. I saw her with students, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Like Mackenzie, she appreciates the homework help.

“They are always on top of you with everything,” she said, adding she’s more likely to do homework there than at home.

Ivana said she realizes how lucky she is to have her mom at home to help there, too.

“Many of the other kids don’t have that,” Ivana said, adding she wishes the program could help more kids, but many aren’t interested when they hear it involves homework and community service.

Ivana’s mom, Ada Garza, said her favorite part of the program is watching the “huge differences” in students.

“When they first come, they are getting bad grades,” Garza said, but MAPS helps them by promoting higher education so they hear guest speakers, visit colleges and learn about career choices.

Garza, a former sixth-grade math teacher in Mexico, said one student questioned why they visited the University of Washington and Seattle University when none of the MAPS kids could afford to go there. Garza said they just want to show students different options.

“Money doesn’t fall from the sky,” she said, explaining how they help students find scholarships.

That student now, incidentally, attends SU.

Another student wanted to go to Everett Community College then transfer to the UW. Garza explained how becoming a Husky would be possible right away. That’s what the student ended up doing and loves it.

“If we didn’t push them” some would not succeed, Garza said.

Some students wonder why they should even finish high school.

“My dad didn’t finish, and we do fine,” Garza said some students say.

Others think “they are not good enough,” she added.

As for homework, Garza said many of the students’ parents would love to help, but some don’t even know how to read or write English.

It saddens Garza that some students don’t show interest in MAPS until it’s too late. Schools send them to her when they are way behind on credits to graduate.

“They say, ‘How come I didn’t meet you before?’ ” she said. “I cannot do magic.”

But she can help. Students can earn high school credits to help them catch up by volunteering and being a guest speaker for MAPS.

“We help them navigate so they know what to do,” Garza said.