“My husband and I love Italy, our kids love Italy, it is a very homey small town atmosphere and we just love it here. So, I am excited and honored to be the Citizen of the Month for October,” Tina Haight smilingly said.

Tina, her husband Marty and their family have lived in Italy for four years. They have three children, Dillon is 14 and attends Italy High School, Grace is 10 and in the fourth grade and Hannah is 9 and in the third grade, they both attend Stafford Elementary.

Mayor Jackson said, “We started the Citizen of the Month about three or four years ago. The Citizen of the Month is awarded to a citizen that should be recognized and is not being recognized. It is long over due for a lot of people to be recognized for what they do for our community. Tina has been a tremendous help to this community. She loves our children. She has a heart for the people of Italy. She is always asking how can I help, what can I do? That is why she was named citizen of the month.”

Mayor Jackson went on to say, “Being recognized is telling people they are special to Italy. It means we think you are special, we think what you do for us is special. Tina and Marty have done nothing but good things for this community as far as our city and our school goes. They should be honored. They have done great things for our city and I am glad they have decided to stay in Italy.”

There are so many things Tina and her family have done for our community such as: the annual Easter Egg Hunt at their home, participating in the Christmas Festival, donating park equipment and the list goes on and on.

But one of Tina’s favorite things to participate in is the book fair held at Stafford Elementary. Tina donated money to the book fair so that every child could purchase whatever book they wanted. They could purchase one book up to the price of $6.99. Every child at Stafford Elementary could go into the book fair, not only fill out a wish list, but actually get to purchase one book and Tina purchased it. Whatever money the library had left over was donated to the library at Stafford to buy more books for the library.

“A lot of children were able to get a book that wouldn’t have been able to. The children are required to walk around and do a wish list of the books they would like to have. If you have no money to buy anything, even a ninety-nine cent book it is really hard and I was one of those children, so now it is very important to me to give back. I grew up very poor, a lot like some children in Italy. It is really important to me to give back to the community, especially to the children,” Tina explained.

Congratulations Tina Haight – Citizen of the Month!