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Published on 02/08/1999 All articles from this issue

LAHS students honored for helping hurricane victims in Central America

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

Schools Roundup

When students at Los Altos High School learned of the devastation Hurricane Mitch reaped throughout Central America last November, they scrambled to send long-term aid through the nonprofit group World Neighbors. The students received awards this month for their work.

Ron Burkard, executive director of World Neighbors, honored four student-groups - M.E.Ch.A., the Learning Community, Latin American Studies and Mexico Lindo - Jan. 29 with Village Awards for raising both public awareness and $6,000 to help hurricane victims.

Students in the four groups worked in and out of their classes for about two months, said Ian Saxton, who is enrolled in the Learning Community class. They collected loose change from schoolmates, sold books and held a fund-raising concert and educational program about Central America.

"These young people have been an inspiration and example for both their peers and adults," Burkard said.

Kendra Coleman, a freshman in Learning Community, said students decided to work with World Neighbors because the group focuses on moving from direct relief to rebuilding and recovery. Donations are used to educate residents on ways to become self-sufficient through self-help programs, she said. World Neighbors works throughout Asia and Africa in addition to Latin America.

Coleman said 100 percent of the funds students raised went to Central America to teach villagers about terracing land, planting short-cycle fava beans so families will have an earlier harvest to feed themselves, and toward micro-credit loans to help people who lost their farms set up cottage industries such as stores.

On a recent visit to Central America, Burkard said he saw the organization's efforts at work.

Burkard said villagers were already harvesting vegetables, such as radishes, fava beans and carrots in some areas.

Saxton said students in the Learning Community decided to help victims of Hurricane Mitch "because it seemed the most current and most important."

Most students were not aware of the devastation to Central America, but through the groups' efforts, many became educated.

Saxton said the Learning Community plans to set up a Web site next month based on the group's project on Central America.

Graham choir students on way to S. California

The Graham Middle School Chamber Singers will join California's top school choirs in Ontario next month to perform at the California Music Directors Association convention.

The Chamber Singers is the only middle or junior high school choir to have been selected to perform at the event.

Graham vocal director Kathy Anderson said earning a spot at the convention is difficult. Elementary-school choirs up to college-level choirs from throughout California must submit audition tapes that include their past three years of work, she said.

"You have to have three years of really outstanding work plus your current work. That's hard to maintain," Anderson said. "We're fortunate because most of our students invest all three of their years in music."

Anderson said this will be the fourth time the choir will perform at the state event.

She said the choir has been selected for the convention each time it has auditioned.

About 220 students participate in one of Graham's four choirs, Anderson said.

The Chamber Singers is the school's top vocal ensemble and includes 31 auditioned eighth graders.

Each member belongs to additional special ensembles such as boys or girls barber shop, Anderson said.

In addition to the state convention, Chamber Singers has participated in state and division honor choirs and will join other music departments to perform at the Annual Performing Arts Tour in Southern California this May.

The choir is scheduled to perform March 22-23 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

IN BRIEF: Students at Castilleja School in Palo Alto met with renowned civil rights scholar Clayborne Carson when he visited the campus Jan. 28. Carson wrote "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr."

Sacred Heart Preparatory school in Atherton displayed four 12-foot by 12-foot sections of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt this month as part of the National High School Quilt Program. To date the quilt contains over 43,000 panels and covers an area larger than 25 football fields.

One of the panels displayed at the school was dedicated to Arturo Islas, a novelists who frequently lectured at Sacred Heart.

The purpose of the quilt display was to promote awareness and the prevention of the infection of AIDS, which has caused more than 400,000 deaths in the United States.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation recently awarded a $410,000 grant to the Occupational Training Institute of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District to fund a new job placement program for the working poor in Santa Clara County.