From its inception in 1967 to the end of fiscal 1981, Portable Practical Educational Preparation, Inc. (PPEP), grew from a 1-bus school on wheels to Arizona's largest multifunded non-profit service agency. The self-help organization serving Arizona's rural and migrant poor grew through three phases. During the 1967-1969 contact phase, PPEP staff and community-based workers established an itinerant schedule and built an atmosphere of trust among rural clients in four counties. During the 1969-1970 involvement phase, PPEP expanded its itinerant circuit, organized local community councils to discover its clients' needs and priorities, and formally established its structure through incorporation. In 1971, PPEP entered a phase of self-actualized community action. PPEP's projects reflected its goals of economic development, community development and redevelopment, emergency assistance, and housing construction. In 1977 PPEP formalized its housing effort by forming the PPEP Housing Development Corporation which had owner-occupied, rental, and other construction and non-construction projects in six counties by 1981. PPEP's services between 1977 and 1981 included transportation, counseling programs (the Rural Intervention Project), consumer education, health programs, alcoholism programs, energy assistance and job training. PPEP's successful practical innovations were exported to seven foreign countries between 1970 and 1980. (SB)