Angels in Our Community - The Spectrum Magazine

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Community Interest PAL Plans Woodside Plaza Kick-Off for the Holidays: Pancake Breakfast (and Neighborhood Meeting) Support PAL at this great pancake breakfast for just $5, then head downtown to enjoy the fun, festive Hometown Holidays the rest of the day! Saturday, Dec. 3, 8–10 a.m. (neighborhood association meeting 10–11 a.m.) Kennedy Middle School, 2521 Goodwin Ave. Get a full breakfast for $5: pancakes (with or without chocolate chips), sausages, hot chocolate and Tang. All proceeds go to Redwood City PAL. There will also be short movies for the little ones (like Rudolph and Frosty), a great time to chat with your neighbors and make new friends, then a Woodside Plaza neighborhood meeting. While you’re there, you can sign up for Nextdoor, the neighbor-to-neighbor social network in partnership with Redwood City. For more information call John Nelson, Woodside Plaza Neighborhood Association chair, at 650-888-4408. Support the Redwood City Education Foundation Need a Christmas tree for your office, shop or store? Honey Bear Trees in Redwood City, a local family-owned business and Redwood City–San Mateo County Chamber of Commerce member, has a special all-inclusive commercial deal that includes delivery and pickup after Christmas, a stand and a CA-required fire-proofing tag. Or you can get only the tree at their lot at 955 Woodside Road in Redwood City. Trees are beautiful noble, grand or Fraser firs and are sustainably grown in Oregon and freshly cut! Be sure to mention the Redwood City Education Foundation and Honey Bear Trees will donate 15 percent to the RCEF to help send fifth-graders in the Redwood City School District to Jones Gulch in La Honda for a memorable week of outdoor education. Contact Aaron Boyle for more information at 650-576-4711 or aaboyle@ gmail.com. Find the tree lot at www.honeybeartrees.com or 650-364-3507. Second Harvest Food Drive and Membership Special at Every Woman Health Club In conjunction with their eighth annual food drive for Second Harvest, Every Woman Health Club is offering a great deal for new members! Simply donate at least six cans of food (or other nonperishable food items) when you become a member, and they will waive the enrollment fee (regularly $99). This offer is good through Dec. 4. For more information, see their website at www.everywomanhealthclub. com, give them a call at 650-364-9194, or just stop by the club! Sequoia Alumni Donate $5,565 to Sequoia Teachers The Sequoia High School Alumni Association announced it has awarded $5,440 to teachers at Sequoia High School under its annual Cherokee Grants program as well as $125 to the Cheer Team. The Cherokee Grants program was established to fund the purchase of instructional equipment, materials or services that are not included in the current Sequoia Union High School District budget. Grant applications are given to every Sequoia High School teacher. The Cherokee Grants Committee studies each request and makes a decision as to how money can best be spent to benefit the most students or the most worthy programs. Several thousand dollars have been awarded since the program was instituted in 1987. This year, 22 teachers have been awarded grants to fully fund or help contribute to items and programs, including a class set and audio CD sets of a book regarding immigration for International Baccalaureate Spanish, a field trip to Ardenwood Farm in Fremont for special education, a trip to France for the French class, art supplies for the art program, a field trip to the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco for special education, books for English literature, whiteboards for ninth-grade algebra support, geometric solid figures for geometry, subscriptions for the French class, motivational posters for mathematics, graphing calculator software for mathematics, registration fee to attend the National Association of College Admissions Counseling for the Guidance Department, a subscription for World Language, CD players and batteries and battery chargers and carrying cases for books on CD for English Reading Special Day Class, training and support for interdisciplinary work for English language development/mathematics/art, stuttering severity instrument for special education, newspaper staff attendance at the National High School Journalism Convention in Seattle, sewing machines for the clothing class, a 50-inch plasma HDTV for dance and P.E. dance classes and a trip for first-generation college students to tour colleges in Northern California and Oregon for the Advanced Via Individual Determination class. Members of the public who wish to donate to this worthwhile program can do so by making a check payable to the Sequoia High School Alumni Association, P.O. Box 2534, Redwood City, CA 94064, stipulating that the funds are to be used for the Cherokee Grants program, or via Paypal on the association’s website: www.sequoiahsalumniassoc.org. Redwood City Toy and Book Drive Kicks Off What makes this program different? The Redwood City Toy Program is a cooperative effort that is orchestrated by members of the Redwood City Police and Fire Departments, Police Activities League and the Fair Oaks Community Center. While all of these entities share equal parts in providing the muscle to direct the program’s efforts, the Redwood City community is truly the backbone to its success. It is the empowerment and strong leadership of city department heads and city officials that enables great community giving campaigns like the Redwood City Toy Program. A unique approach (operations) It begins with social services, where struggling families must meet qualifications through a financial background check and interview. The family is then assigned a number that represents their address, number of children, age and gender. At that point, the number and information attached to it are passed to the Fire/ PD team, which organizes multiple events that lead to the ultimate distribution of the toys. The first events are a series of pre-bagging parties, where a predetermined number of toys, games and books is distributed to each family. The toys are then relayed from the warehouse to the Red Morton Community Center for the annual wrapping party. All of these events are driven by volunteers from throughout the community. The toys are distributed over the course of three delivery nights. The teams are led by Santa, who is accompanied by volunteers from police, fire and their families. At this point, the teams set out to distribute the toys and an unforgettable holiday experience to the assigned families. This has become a very popular event and it’s not uncommon to find department heads, City Council members or other community champions riding shotgun as St. Nick’s helpers on the deliveries. Toy donations The toys that support the program are donated by community members to the following four sources: businesses around the community (listed on the program’s website) that sponsor toy barrel drop-offs, fire station and police department drop-offs, holiday parties with a “toy theme” hosted by individuals or businesses in the community, monetary donations that contribute to the purchase of new toys. After the fire In addition to the qualified families who receive toys, the program is also used to touch those families whose lives have been impacted by adverse situations. Typically, when firefighters and police officers are interfacing with the community on emergency responses, it’s because someone is having a bad day, maybe even the worst day they’ve ever experienced. City leaders have helped shape our culture into one that affords us the ability to help make positive impacts on these people’s lives — and the program does that through the giving of toys. Whether it is a fire around the holidays, a child with cancer or a parent taken from their children, this program is empowered to give aid to these families without a bunch of red tape. www.SpectrumMagazine.net
Angels in Our Community In November, members of the Adobe Youth Voices Peapod Academy in Redwood City welcomed the entire community to the Fox Theatre for the screening of their original short film, “Angel in My Sky.” Written, produced, directed, filmed, edited and acted by some of the talented teen members themselves, this influential coming-of-age film focuses on the astonishing metamorphosis of a young man who is clearly headed down a destructive path as a result of the tragic loss of his close, older brother. But he ultimately triumphs because of a new-found reverence and unshakable faith in God (and angels). “Angel in My Sky” not only has the power to catapult today’s fallen teens back on a good track and motivate Generation Xers and Baby Boomers to fulfill unrealized dreams of the past, but it also has the same powerful force to turn the unbeliever toward belief in a Holy Spirit that has a special plan and purpose for their life. “ ‘Angel in My Sky’ has impacted me in so many ways,” said Daniela Gasparini, former Redwood City mayor and member of the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, who also served as the master of ceremonies at the film’s premiere. “I first am proud of the talent these young men and women possess in this creative world. Their acting talent, technical talent, musical and lyrical talent, writing and producing. Then, after seeing the short film, I realize the access they have been given by such amazing community partners like Adobe and Peapod Academy is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it was our local Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula [that] was chosen to receive these partnerships of philanthropy, equipment and talent. Our Boys & Girls Club applied for this grant and was awarded, and seeing what they were able to do with this funding proves to me if we give our youth access to education, access to By Nicole Minieri, contributing writer equipment and technology, and access to mentors, they will succeed as they did in this film. The final part that struck me is the notion that these young men and women do have faith. And they do talk about it and they do believe and hope for a more tolerant world.” The film stars Redwood City’s Diamonte Horton as Dominic and Richard Kaho as Angelo, in addition to other cast members Ruby Gonzalez, who plays Dominic’s best friend, P.J. Guzman, Taulango Sofele, Eduardo Deras, Fabio Aguilar, Junior Tupou, Tyler Gil-Contreras and Codie Louie, who portray the gang members. A year in the making, “Angel in My Sky” was filmed on location in various sections of Redwood City, Foster City, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and Stanford by cinematographers Roberto Guzman, Gil-Contreras, Francisco Espinoza Torres Jr., David Sanchez and Peter Pheap. The film was directed as a group effort at the Adobe Youth Voices Peapod Academy and was edited by Marcos Gonzalez, P.J. Polai, Roberto Guzman, Gil-Contreras, Edward Flores, Francisco Hernandez, Deras and Victor Ortega. The film’s music was composed and/or performed by Horton, Kaho, Polai, Tupou, Marvin Burgarini, Jose Saavedra, Arthur Renowitzky, Pheap and Ivan Reyes Martinez. However, the ultimate success of “Angel in My Sky,” as well as other media projects at the Adobe Youth Voices Peapod Academy, is found in the continuous hands-on experience and creative skills each member acquires from committed individuals who provide outstanding mentorship in the areas of acting, music, multimedia production, computer programming, web design and cultural studies. Guiding these precocious teens throughout the making of this inspirational short film were Gabriel “Blanco” Lomeli Jr., Martinez, Torres, Pheap, Tony Gapastione, Sanchez and Diego Pettersson, who was the mastermind behind the collaboration between the academy’s Somewhere2turn partnership with the NOH8 Campaign in 2010, which received national attention. “I go to the Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academy one day a week for a couple of hours,” said Gapastione, an accomplished actor, writer and filmmaker. “I help cultivate and work with these kids on all aspects of storytelling by doing really specific storytelling-type teaching in basic elements of a story, and what makes a good story. We do a lot of brainstorming and work on starting the foundation of a story and how to create a story that is worth watching, investing and producing. Every time we have a class, we do a short story challenge where we read them out loud and improvise. We also try to find elements in their own stories and in their own personal lives and then put them into movies that we are making. For example, the gang theme in ‘Angel in My Sky’ is a very pertinent, significant issue with all of our teens because it’s the truth in their own world. It’s a chilling reality to the pressure these kids face on a regular basis of their everyday life.” Gapastione, who is currently the full-time pastor of adult ministries at the Peninsula Covenant Church in Redwood City, was involved in several outreach programs while working with Broadway By the Bay when he was initially introduced to the Boys & Girls Clubs, which happens to be directly linked to the Peapod/Adobe Youth Voices program in Redwood City. “When I first heard about the mentoring opportunity, I thought this was a great chance to get to know people on the other side of my town,” explained Gapastione. “But then I was totally blown away at how the lives of these kids are really centered and spiritual around God. And the spiritual overtones that came up in ‘Angel in My Sky’ were on their own accord. I think it’s really neat to see these kids reaching and (continues on page 25) The Spectrum 13
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