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Published on 12/08/1999 All articles from this issue

Menlo students act as ambassadors at AIDS Day

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By Linda Taaffe / Town Crier Staff Writer

Schools Roundup

Child center to double in size

In an attempt to raise awareness about AIDS, 24 students from Menlo School volunteered to serve as youth ambassadors at the World Aids Day, held Dec. 1 at San Francisco's National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park.

As ambassadors, the students helped introduce each speaker, including San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown Jr. and Rev. Cecil Williams, and repeated the day's theme "Listen, Learn and Live" to those assembled. They also handed out bay leaves as a remembrance. People then used them to write the names of those whom they had lost to the AIDS disease .

For Courtney Chandler, a senior at the Menlo Park school, last week's event was not the first time she had volunteered to help raise awareness about the disease. She helped plant the bushes at the memorial grove last year through the school's community service program. Chandler said she wanted to return to see how the grove looked a year later.

She said the event was an "eye opener. I'm lucky, I've never known anyone that (AIDS has) happened to ... the day made me realize more so that it can affect me and my friends."

Steve Ehikian said the event was inspirational.

"I think there's a lot of hope, confidence" in the community, Ehikian said.

The Child Development and Education Division at De Anza College is one step closer to dramatically increasing its services and almost doubling the size of its Child Development Center. The Foothill-De Anza Community College District Board of Trustees recently approved the preliminary architectural drawing for the addition and renovation.

The state has earmarked almost $4 million for the project from funds that were set aside from a 1998 bond election.

The district will add more than 9,000 square feet to the existing facility to accommodate the needs of 60 children between the ages of six months and three years. It will also provide more space for parents, the instructional program and administrative offices. About 100 to 110 families currently have children enrolled at the center.

Officials said the architectural design was guided by three principles: to create a nurturing learning environment, to support the center's staff professionally and to provide a place for the education of future child care professionals.

The expansion, slated to take about three years to complete, will be built in front of the existing main entrance to the existing Child Development Center. Officials say the expansion will create a courtyard between the new wing and the existing one.

`"We've worked hard to create an environment that will not seem like an institution but rather will appear as home-like as possible," said Paul Chesler, an early childhood education. Chesler said the center will also provide students the opportunity to see their children between classes.

For more information, call (408) 864-8788.

IN BRIEF: De Anza College raised more than $90,000 Sept. 13 at its annual fund-raiser "A night of Magic." The funds will help the community college equip language, biological and health science laboratories. As part of a measuring lesson, fourth-grade students the center's staff professionally and to provide a place for the education of future childcare professionals.

The expansion, slated to take about three years to complete, will be built in front of the main entrance to the existing Child Development Center.

Officials say the expansion will create a courtyard between the new wing and the existing one.

"We've worked hard to create an environment that will not seem like an institution but rather will appear as home-like as possible," said Paul Chesler, an early childhood educator.

Chesler said the center will also provide student-parents the opportunity to see their children between classes.

For more information, call (408) 864-8788.