Jean Hoffman featured in newspaper article.

Jean Hoffman, co-founder of the 9 Queens organization was featured in an article in today's paper for "Gifts of Tucson". The article focuses on her returning to Tucson after earning degrees at BOTH Yale and Harvard (Ed. note: I know... I haven't heard of those schools either.) to teach chess to those that could normally not afford to be involved.

Each day in December, we (Arizona Daily Star) are writing about a Gift of Tucson. These are people who quietly make our town what it is — volunteers, parents, neighbors, people who commit random acts of kindness. Go to go.azstarnet.com/giftsoftucson to read about other gifts of Tucson.

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But after graduating from Yale, she took some time off from school and went to New York City to teach chess in low-income schools.

"I thought it would be part-time," said Hoffman. "But it was there that I became a believer in the power of chess as a teaching tool."

So she went on to get her master's in education from Harvard, and headed back to her Tucson home, where she launched the nonprofit 9 Queens.

Jean is hosting an informal chess gathering Dec. 8 at the Hotel Congress at 5:00 pm for anyone that is interested.