Year-round YDA can change Avalon students' lives

José Godoy, a senior at Avalon Continuation High School walked to the middle of his tiny, two-building campus where eighty percent of students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches because of their families’ financial state.

Standing on the damp asphalt of the quad, he grinned and slammed a padded striker against a hand-held gong again and again for 10 seconds. A cheer went up from the whole school — the 120 students eating lunch around him.

“When they finish a class, we bang the gong once, and when they graduate, we let them hit the gong as much as they want,” principal Regina Awtry said.

Awtry is the principal of Avalon, a continuation school in Wilmington. the school is situated across Avalon Boulevard from Banning High School, the only major high school in the city.

“Avalon is where students go when they fail at Banning,” Awtry said.

This February, after a successful pilot program, ShareFest is starting its year-round Youth Development Academy at Avalon. We have adapted our summer program to fit the needs of Avalon, and it promises to be a life-changing experience.

Avalon is the ideal location for ShareFest to start its year-round Youth Development Academy because it will have a pointed impact on students in Wilmington. It focuses on a small group where the effect of tutoring and life training will be readily apparent.

Students have already committed to getting their lives on track by attending Avalon, and the first step is helping them graduate. Through one-on-one tutoring in a larger class, ShareFest volunteers will help teach English and basic algebra and geometry to prepare students for the California High School Exit Examination. The tutoring will help ensure more students can bang that gong, but that's just the start.

“Education isn’t just academics. It’s life-skills and character-building. It’s interwoven, and if we truly are preparing our young people to be the future leaders and the future citizens, it’s more than just book-work," Awtry said.

In addition to tutoring, ShareFest is putting every youth resource and partnership we have into motion:

• Path4Teens is the life-skills and leadership program students attended at the summer YDA, and now it's coming to Avalon. It is fun and interactive training designed to equip teenagers with a positive and practical foundation for developing a set of life-skills that facilitate healthy and productive decision-making.


• Hands on Art is another carryover from the summer YDA and will teach five art projects this year. Each project consists of an art lesson, a hands on project inspired by a particular art style or artist and a presentation from students to their piers.


• JustOne will offer a community development program to communicate the importance of caring for our surrounding communities while instilling the values of compassion, love, and relief. Students will get the chance to put this into action by participating in two JustOne initiatives: A Trashcan Can Make a Difference and the Laundry Love Project.


• A Financial Literacy Program will help students become financially aware by covering topics such as budgeting, credit cards, buying a home, cars and loans, saving and investing, and more.


• Lifetime Fitness, a course offered by Cal State Dominguez Hills, is specifically designed to fit the needs of the students at Avalon High School and will teach students how to develop a lifetime of physical activity and healthy eating habits that foster better health. Students will also earn 3 units of transferable college credit.

"We want to give these students every chance possible to succeed," Anwar Shariff, the YDA Program Director, said. "It's starts in the classroom, but it ends with creating leaders who can build a purposeful life and healthy community."

ShareFest needs tutors from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, February 1- March 12, 2010. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Anwar Shariff at Anwar@ShareFestinc.org.

If you would like to support ShareFest and the students at Avalon, please consider donating here.

Or see below to hear about one student's experience in our pilot program.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSGIA30TiRw]

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Avalon High School Christmas Tree Delivery

18-year-old Dariana had helped decorate her classroom door the whole morning, and when she stood in front of the painting of the Grinch stealing Christmas, she had a permanent smile stretched across her face.

At her school, Avalon Continuation High School in Wilmington, the Grinch hadn't come. Instead, seven volunteers from King's Harbor Church came to deliver Christmas trees to students' families in need.

Dariana stands in front of her class' entry in Avalon's Christmas door competition.

“It means a lot because a lot of people right now can’t buy a tree," Dariana said.

At Avalon, the site of ShareFest's year-round Youth Development Academy, 80 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches because of their families' financial situation. Aware of this, the state of the economy and the holidays quickly approaching, Principal Regina Awtry knew she had students at her school whose families couldn't afford a tree. When ShareFest approached her with the idea of donating trees, she jumped at it.

“The intrinsic value, I can’t even express," Awtry, said. “When our kids are the recipients of people’s kindness and generosity, then it is my hope and it is my expectation for our kids that some day they will be in the position that they’ll be able to do the same for someone else. We plant the seeds in the kids that communities help each other out.”

On Dec. 11, Awtry's voice flooded through the loudspeaker, filling the two-building campus before the scheduled  lunch-time and announcing the arrival of their guests. Avalon's 120 students hurried out of class when they heard ShareFest volunteers had brought donuts for each of them and Christmas trees for those who needed them.

Volunteers cut and load the trees on their way to Avalon.

In the spirit of ShareFest, the volunteers delivering the trees weren't willing to drop their gifts and leave. They wanted a chance to interact with the students.

“The trees were just an in-road to get to communicate to these kids and encourage them, hope to inspire them and ultimately bless them,” Todd Pearson from King’s Harbor said.

It was a gesture of generosity the future leaders at Avalon are already learning to imitate with a canned food drive ending Wednesday. They are already becoming leaders in a community of care and passing on what they can to those in need.

"It's the Christmas spirit, and it's lovely," Ana, an 11th grade student, said.

Click here to see more photos.

Workday 2009 video

Attendees at ShareFest's Sixth Annual Evening of Community Fundraiser got the first glimpse of our 2009 Workday video, but now it's online for all to see.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb4ug01vefU]

Pass it along, especially to any of our generous volunteers.

Evening of Community 2009 recap

Ruby, a student from Avalon High School — a continuation school in Wilmington — faced  350+ community leaders in suits, ties and dresses. Her voice quivered slightly while she read from her notecards, but she pushed through to the end and delivered her message: Thank you. Thank you for a second chance.

The high school student stood on stage and told the room how she'd hit some bad bumps in her life, but the leadership program through ShareFest's year-round Youth Development Academy helped her get control of her life.

"You guys have all helped so many of us," Ruby said, speaking on behalf of students at Avalon High School.

Ruby thanks ShareFest supporters for giving her and Avalon students a new chance.

Ruby exemplified ShareFest's Evening of Community Fundraiser on November 7 at the Torrance Marriott where guests heard the essence of ShareFest from the mouths of the people it serves.

It was a night to support ShareFest monetarily through silent and live auctions, but more importantly, it let attendees hear the Voices of ShareFest, voices like Ruby's.

Throughout the evening, donors celebrated ShareFest projects such as building a community center in Harbor Gateway where 200 children and families had recently watched a movie outside. Two years ago, this property was nothing more than a dirt lot where families were afraid to venture out because of prevalent racial violence.

A bidder raises his hand during the live auction.

Ruby was just one of many to voice her experience with ShareFest, and she is one of many more to come. Through the Workday and newly announced year-round Youth Development Academy, ShareFest is creating lasting positive change in the community and training leaders to sustain it.

Saturday was a night for the those serving and those served to celebrate the change taking place and become a catalyst for even more.

"It's great to witness the whole community come out to support ShareFest," Anwar Shariff, a counselor at the summer YDA, said at the fundraiser.

If you could not attend the fundraiser but would like to support ShareFest, please click here to find out how.

Changing education for a Wilmington student

In Michoacán, Mexico, Esteban Carranza started his education in a two-room school. His world was completely different from the one he found in Wilmington, California, when he came to the U.S. at 11 years old.

In Mexico he tended to his uncle's plot, looked after cows when his grandfather was sick and received food — not cash — for any work. His drive for soccer might be the only part of his childhood Esteban and kids in Wilmington would have had in common.

Despite the difference in the U.S., Esteban never stopped pursuing the education his father and family continually told him would be a catalyst for success. With the support of his family, ShareFest and the Wilmington community, Esteban has overcome any hindrance and is starting his second year at the University of California San Diego — a college larger than the 100-house hometown.

The sophomore math major's life has been indelibly changed by coming to Wilmington, in some good ways and some negative ways. The city was an intimidating factor for Esteban when he started middle school, but by eighth grade, he rose to the top of his class. And after working through high school at Banning, Esteban was set to start college.

Days before Esteban was headed to UC San Diego for his first semester, his laptop was stolen the same week he bought it. A bag full of electronic, already packed to move into his dorm, was taken from his house. But — rallied by ShareFest — the Wilmington and wider community stood up to counteract the crime committed against Esteban and fight the negative image of Wilmington that type of act creates.

"ShareFest provided me with a new laptop and with all the equipment I would need for it plus a new way to look at life," Esteban said.

Esteban poses with Pilar Hoyos, Vice President of Public Affairs at Watson Land Company. Watson Land Company along with other businesses and private donors helped provide Esteban with replacement items for ones stolen from his home. The computer helped Esteban earn a 3.0 GPA during his first year at UCSD.

At first, a call for help came from Esteban's uncle. He told Rubin Harsoyo, the L.A. City Neighborhood Prosecutor for Wilmington, what had happened. Rubin, assigned to prosecute criminals from the neighborhood, had seen the work ShareFest did in the Cruces neighborhood in Wilmington, fighting gang activity by giving productive outlets and a new perspective to the youth and families there, so, naturally, Rubin's next call was to ShareFest.

Within days, before leaving for college, Esteban received a new laptop and calculator funded by donors coordinated by ShareFest.

It was Esteban's introduction to ShareFest and its commitment to creating caring communities and connecting with children and families.

"Sharefest has done that with my family and me. I will never forget what ShareFest and the Community of Wilmington did for me," Esteban said.

He said that support, mental, emotional and tangible, has kept him motivated, allowed him to bypass the traffic jam of students vying for school electronics and helped him complete his first year with a 3.0 GPA.

"My first year at the University of California San Diego has been the best experience of my life," Esteban said.

Esteban has begun his second year at college, and he's not about to stop. He wants to leave his impact, like the community and ShareFest already have on him.

"I don’t want to work in a fast food restaurant for the rest of my life. I will not give my chance to study for anything in the world because knowledge allows us to have a broader perspective of the world. And with a broader perspective we can help more people not just a small community," he said. "I have come so far and I will not stop now."