View Finder / Odds & Ends Around the Valley
Japanese What?
They’re (ballet) dancing in the halls at Sherman Oaks Elementary School.
They are also learning needle craft, storytelling, crafts, karate and ceramics on campus after school, thanks to the Sherman Oaks Parents Assn.’s Super School.
According to Principal Grace Snipper, the parents set up the enrichment program almost 10 years ago, and through the years it has broadened to include more esoteric subjects such as Japanese conversation and cuisine.
Teachers are brought in from the community and paid through student fees. The parents association, known as SOPA, has scholarship money available.
“The program is terrific,” says working mother Julie London, “because you don’t have to be rushing to pick up your children after school to take their ballet or karate lesson. They can stay right at school.”
Each year the parents association also provides thousands of dollars worth of needed school supplies that the budget won’t allow, parent Jay Levy said.
“Because school funds have been so radically curtailed, SOPA provides essentials like books, pencils, paper and a Xerox machine,” Levy said.
The association also helps with funds for special arts programs, assemblies, a science project and field trips, but its biggest challenge is yet to come.
“We are looking for community and corporate help in getting the school a $120,000 air-conditioning system so that when classes start again in August, it will be in place,” Levy said. “Because of the advent of year-round schools air conditioning can no longer be considered a luxury.”
The association will kick off its cool campaign at its community festival Sunday at the school between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
“We hope to raise enough at the festival to continue with the programs we have begun, as well as get a start on the refrigeration unit,” Levy said.
Grass-Roots Trees
Contrary to appearances, one need not be a rock star, movie idol or corporate mogul to contribute meaningfully to saving the environment.
A Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. program allows just plain folks to participate in the ecological enrichment of the community. It’s called the Urban Forest Project.
According to Alan B. Ungar, the project supplies trees for the Sepulveda Basin, but it is not just another tree-planting scheme in which large donations are strong-armed from corporations.
This is a tree-planting scheme in which individual employees join with the usual corporate donors to get the job done.
Ecological egalitarianism.
“The success of this project is dependent on the employer-employee partnership,” said Ungar, who chairs the project. With employees donating what they can, everyone in the sponsoring organizations gets a real sense of participation, he said.
The first 250 sycamore, cedar, jacaranda, camphor, Chinese pistache and maidenhair trees were planted last weekend at the basin’s old Balboa Park in Encino.
That represented the donations of numerous corporate sponsors and about 15,000 employees, Ungar said. Many of the donors were on hand to enjoy the occasion and be entertained by Asi Es Mi Peru, a South American folk dancing group. Phyllis Big Left Hand gave the dedication of the trees, which were planted by workers from the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, and the TreePeople.
Sponsoring companies included Boething Treeland and the Health Net office in Woodland Hills, Trans World Bank’s Sherman Oaks branch, General Motors of Van Nuys, Texaco USA of Universal City and the Southern California Gas Co. of Chatsworth. Ungar said VICA hopes to get more.
Full House
The Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland is an American-based volunteer organization that is doing its part to ease tensions in that part of the world.
Each summer, the 3-year-old organization pairs a Protestant teen-ager with a Catholic youth and brings both to live in a home in the United States for six weeks.
“This is not just an organization that tries to get the kids out of the war zone for a little while,” Cindy Flannery of Westlake Village said.
“The whole idea of this program is for the young people to form a bond, a lasting relationship, that will continue after they return home.”
When Flannery and her husband, Daniel, heard about the project two years ago, they decided to give it a try. “We had just lost our 3-year-old son to a genetic disease so we were acutely aware of how vulnerable children are,” she said.
The Flannerys, who have two other boys--Devin, 10, and Sean-Michael, 4--invited a couple of Belfast-area teen-agers into their home. Cindy Flannery said it was a wonderful experience for the whole family.
“Our youngsters adored them, and so did we,” said Flannery, now the organization’s Southern California chairman.
Apparently so. This summer they will be hosting four youngsters.
“We will be hosting two boys, Sean Devlin and Michael Watson, and two girls, Clodagh McKenna and Michele Breen,” Flannery said.
“Sean lives in the very troubled Falls Road area, sort of a Catholic ghetto in Belfast, and Michael is from Shankill, a Protestant stronghold, so they should have lots to talk about.”
Clodagh is from County Tyrone and Michele from County Fermanagh. All of the youths are 17.
Flannery said anyone interested in sponsoring a pair may call her at (805) 494-1183, or her husband at his Theoria Productions light design company in Studio City at (818) 760-1300.
Support and guidance are furnished by the organization, but the money and effort comes from the sponsors.
“The costs include the plane tickets and all living expenses, or something just over $1,000 a pair,” Flannery said.
“This isn’t something you go into as a lark. It takes time and money and sometimes a lot of patience. You have to believe in the cause.”
Overheard
“From the back, you don’t know if it’s one of the Nelsons or Kim Carnes.”
--One Valley girl to another outside the Sam Goody store at the Sherman Oaks Galleria
