Funding and resources were non-existent in the early days of the program and In an effort to determine whether the small fledgling volunteer effort could be stabilized and expanded into an official program, a group of local firefighters contacted Sandra Dowling, the newly elected Maricopa County School Superintendent . Realizing that homeless students were not receiving appropriate education services through the local school district, Dowling and the firefighters worked with the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) to change the plight of what turned out to be thousands of children over a twenty-year span. In 1990 Dowling founded the Thomas J. Pappas School for Homeless Children using the limited resources provided through state funding opportunities, federal grant monies and community donations to develop an official curriculum and provide school facilities for homeless children. A local Episcopal church housed the first classrooms before growth of the program in less than one academic year quadrupled the number of students requiring services. The move to a former car dealership that was leased and then renovated for use as a school for grades K-8, Dowling's program becoming the first school for the homeless children in Phoenix and evolved into a national model.