PAGE FOUR

At Your Service

by, Jenny Lapidus
(Community Coordinator)

An integral part of the Los Encinos School experience is both community projects and service. The program is designed to encourage meaningful student and parent participation. Integrating our school’s Virtues and Values helps us put concepts like empathy and kindness into practice.
Jenny Lapidus

Student involvement is critical to the success of our events.  Our students are engaged by creating posters, speaking at Friday assembly, preparing PowerPoints to present to Care Families, and participating in hands-on experiences. We strive to give our students the skills to become future leaders while raising much-needed awareness. Parent involvement is equally important. Parents are invited to help with our many school drives and workshops.

In the first trimester, we faced the devastation of The California Wildfires that were literally in our backyard. Several of our families were evacuated. Our community collected protein bars and beverages for the firefighters.

In October, we participated for our ninth year in the JDRF One Walk at the Rose Bowl. Our current families, alumni, and their families attended the walk, made donations, or both. The sixth grade students spearheaded our involvement by visiting the JDRF Headquarters and prepared educational PowerPoints which were shared with the members of their Care Families.

Veterans Day was an opportunity for our community to learn and make a difference. We invited veterans from our community to speak at Friday assembly. Each student had an opportunity to decorate cupcakes (completing more than 250) and design handmade banners that were given to LA Family Housing. The banners are currently hanging on the dining hall walls at the Bridge Housing on Lankershim Blvd., one of the campuses of LAFH.

Our Thanksgiving Food drives were earmarked for two stellar organization. Non-perishable items were donated to the North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry; and fresh turkeys with all the trimmings were given to New Friends of the Homeless, the group that meets at St. Nicholas Church next door to school. They enjoyed a magnificent Thanksgiving Day feast!

Both LA Family Housing and Operation Gratitude were the focus of our Holiday Workshop. As a school community, we provided new twin sized bedding and hygiene supplies for 170 young people who live under the auspices of LA Family Housing. As students wrapped these items, they also wrote holiday wishes to our active military. The cards were sent to our troops via Operation Gratitude.

Martin Luther King Jr., Day provides a special time of reflection and service. We come together to support our gently used clothing drive to benefit MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity). According to Victoria DeSoto, the donations coordinator, our small school’s annual donation (this year, it included over 300 large plastic bags) always surpasses every other school drive. We end the school year with our annual magazine drive to benefit the many veterans in our community. The magazines are distributed to LA Family Housing and VA Hospitals.

Jenny Lapidus with Veronica DeSoto and Manuel Arias of MEND

The remainder of the second and third trimesters finds us implementing many classroom projects. Whether it is the kindergartners shopping for hygiene items to donate to individuals transitioning from homelessness, the first graders making housewarming gifts and buying needed supplies for Habitat for Humanity, the second graders collecting peanut butter and cold cereal for the North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry, the third graders walking the neighborhood to partner with our local merchants and police officers, the fourth graders holding their Bark sale for Guide Dogs of America, the fifth graders serving homemade sandwiches at LA Family Housing, or the sixth graders further developing skills so they can spearhead projects that are meaningful on a personal level, every student comes away with a sense of their place in the bigger world and the importance of giving back.

We end the school year with our annual magazine drive to benefit the many veterans in our community. These magazines are distributed to LA Family Housing and VA Hospitals.

The support of the Los Encinos community is always apparent. It truly takes a village.

The 4th graders run the “bark sale” to support Guide Dogs of America, while they also learn the business of
manufacturing, inventory, pricing, and marketing.  Watch the commercial they produced above!

READ ALL ABOUT IT

But how could you live and have no story to tell?

–Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights