Ajo, Arizona

Ajo, Arizona is a small, rural town with a population of 3,705, located 10 miles west of the Tohono O’odham Nation and 40 miles north of the State of Sonora, Mexico . Key town assets include our being in the gateway to the extraordinary , pristine Sonoran Desert; our beautiful historic buildings and town center (Ajo is Arizona's only remaining example of the City Beautiful or Garden City movement); and our rich cultural diversity. Once a thriving copper mining town, Ajo was economically devastated when the mine closed in 1985. Today the tax base is still only 1/4 what it was in 1980 and 23% of our residents live in poverty .

Since 2005 our Communities for All Ages team has successfully been leveraging the strengths of residents across the lifespan to make Ajo a great place to grow up and grow old . Our broad strategy has been to use the disarming power of the arts to bring people together across cultures and generations. We host festivals and celebrations, we sponsor arts and cultural crafts workshops, and we bring the community out to create public art. We have also renovated several large historic buildings, restoring vital hubs for intergenerational and multicultural engagement and interaction in the town. These permanent institutional anchors include an award-winning artisan live/work project surrounded by a community cultural and learning center for all ages created on the vacant 7.5 acre Curley School school campus. Recently we have begun working to restore Ajo's historic town plaza and park as a vibrant multicultural and multigenerational town center.