Fresno Bee (California)
May 31, 2007 Thursday
FINAL EDITION
Fresno students reach out to Armenia;
Manchester council will adopt a village school.
by Margaret Slaby The Fresno Bee
In the past, student council members at Manchester GATE School have
directed most of their outreach efforts to the local community.
They’ve held canned food, book and stuffed animal drives and
collected items to fill gift boxes for needy children.
But now there’s something much bigger in the works. The council will
adopt a village school in Armenia. Although it hasn’t been confirmed,
Manchester most likely will adopt the village school of Hermon.
Anita Ullner, student council faculty adviser and a sixth-grade
teacher at Manchester, envisions an effort to raise money for desks,
chairs, books, supplies and a computer. She also hopes the schools
can exchange letters and photographs.
"This is going to go on for years, as far as I’m concerned," Ullner
says.
The project came about when Kristina Garabedian, 21, a former
Manchester student now attending Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma,
Wash., spoke to the council about helping an Armenian school. Her
father, Robert Garabedian, who is a dentist, has gone to Armenia
every summer for the past nine years to provide free dental work and
set up clinics. Kristina and her brother, Michael, 19, as well as
their mother, Sharon, have gone on some of the trips.
Seven years ago, Kristina founded Shoebox Caring, a nonprofit
organization that provides school supplies and other essentials to
Armenian schoolchildren. Two years ago, through Shoebox Sharing,
Fresno’s Gibson Elementary adopted the Armenian village school of
Goshtanik and raised money to buy desks, chairs, blackboards and a
computer; that project is ongoing.
Robert, Sharon and Kristina will travel to Armenia in June to work
out the details of Manchester’s project.
"It’s a wonderful thing when you see the look on these kids’ faces,"
Sharon Garabedian says. "There are kids who haven’t been able to go
to school because they didn’t have a pencil to write with; the only
thing they have to write on are old newspapers. Our 10-cent notebooks
are like gold to them."
Manchester’s student council, which consists of about 40 third- to
sixth-graders, will begin fundraising for the project this fall.
Students already have collected children’s-size Manchester T-shirts,
says council president Joey Perales, 11, a sixth-grader.
Sixth-grader Alex Julian, 11, who was council president last fall,
likes reaching out, whether in Fresno or Armenia. "We feel really
good after we help people," he says.
In October, the council collected more than 5,000 books for Read
Fresno. "That was a lot of fun," asys sixth-grader Emily Kearns, 11.
In December the council gathered about a dozen boxes of essentials
such as toothpaste, crayons and snacks for Mission Treasure Box, a
project started by Clovis’ Phoenicia and Robert Martinez to help
low-income elementary school children. The council collected almost
400 stuffed animals for a local trauma intervention program and
Children’s Hospital Central California in 2005 and has held canned
food drives for the Fresno Rescue Mission. The council also raised
about $3,000 two years ago to help a family displaced by Hurricane
Katrina.
"I think helping people is great," says fifth-grader Kennady Reason,
11, the council’s fall secretary/vice president. "We’re helping our
community and building leadership."
The council also directs its efforts toward campus. "We try to
improve the school system and make it fun," says sixth-grader Daria
Etezadi, 12, council vice president. Sixth-grader Courtney Lowe, 11,
council secretary, says suggestion boxes are placed in each
classroom; the council votes on items.
Council members also can be found picking up trash on campus.
"Our mission is to serve our Manchester community, whether it be our
neighborhood or in Fresno," Ullner says. "It’s about helping others,
and, hopefully, it becomes part of who they are."