Students take the lead on fundraising efforts
From saving academics to cleaning up nuclear waste, Ventura County youth embark on ambitious campaigns
By Paul Sisolak 02/11/2010
The donations may have fundamental differences in their dollar figures — $30,000 versus a mere $99 — but their collective value is priceless.
Whether it’s allocating scarce funds to salvage summer classes their own school administrators cannot afford to pay for, or taking a youthful stand against a very toxic problem that is solely the fault of adults, two separate groups of college and high school students, respectively, are in the local spotlight this week for leading a pair of successful fundraising efforts.
Members of the Associated Students of Ventura College (ASVC) announced that they have amassed $30,000 and are well on the way of attaining their financial goal, effectively saving the last of summertime courses at the community college, a loss that could have derailed hundreds of students from their academic paths.
And in East County, the self-appointed Teens Against Toxins held a Bake Sale Meltdown to help clean up Boeing’s highly contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab, marred from fallout by years of rocket testing.
The student group donation means that the college will be able to add four important classes back to its second summer session in late July: English composition, college algebra, trigonometry and speech. School budget cuts resulted in the complete cancellation of an entire four-week session scheduled in June; and the later six-week summer semester, which the associated students worked to save, was also diminished.
Raymond Morua, 27, who recently graduated from Ventura College with a degree in international business and economics, was one of the ASVC senators who saw the great need summer classes meet for students.
“A lot of the students who take summer classes, they take them to [fulfill] their needs to transfer,” he said. But without those classes to bridge the gap between winter and fall semesters, he noted, “They’ll have to wait an extra year to transfer or graduate. We thought this would be the most direct way to still graduate on time.”
Morua collaborated with fellow ASVC member and student Trevor Zierhut, 22, also a business major, and the two met with school administrators before the new year to see if funneling club money, earned mostly from the sale of student IDs, was possible.
“It was a surprise to me that they were willing to sacrifice those funds utilized for their own activities,” said Ramiro Sanchez, the school’s executive vice president of student learning.
So when the ASVC officially donated the monies totaling $20,000, it amounted to more than one-third of the club’s $55,000 budget, said Zierhut. But the effort’s numerical worth is more than just dollar figures. According to Zierhut and Morua, at least 400 students will be able to take the courses they need and avoid being faced with graduation delays, delays in entering universities or the workforce, armed with their college degrees.
Soon after school administrators accepted the club’s money, a local business, Haas Automation of Oxnard, donated $10,000 of its own to the effort.
“From that $10,000, we’re going to add back two additional speech classes,” confirmed Sanchez.
Zierhut and Morua said they’re hoping to get $10,000 more, but time is running out. If more classes aren’t added to the college’s summer roster within two weeks, they said, the semester is filled out.
While the Teens Against Toxins’ fundraising was significantly smaller in denominations, their bold, big statement supporting environmental protection made up for it. Their plan: hold the Bake Sale Meltdown, and distribute the funds, in person, to Boeing personnel on Monday afternoon. It would be their way of opposing a lack of timely cleanup of the toxic Rocketdyne site, and Boeing’s legal move to overturn Senate Bill 990, which requires companies to clean up their own toxic or chemical contamination.
“They’re hoping to do a teenage Michael Moore thing, where they try to go up and give them money in a polite way,” said Cindy Gortner, mother of one of the teens, before the Boeing visit.
Her daughter, 15-year-old Devyn, led the Monday afternoon group visit to Canoga Park, oversized check in tow, which was not received well at the Boeing gates.
“The rude lady demanded what we wanted with the company, and we politely said we wanted to present a check of $99.31,” said Devyn.
But after a 40-minute wait, the teens were turned away and prohibited from filming the exchange with a Boeing representative. They were promised, according to Devyn, a return phone call and a future visit of the site.
That hasn’t stopped the young group from making plans to press the issue in the near future. As for the Associated Students of Ventura College, they hope to pass the $40,000 finish line before the deadline.
“It’s a great tribute to this younger generation for wanting to help other students,” Sanchez said. “I compliment them in their efforts.”
Anyone interested in making a monetary donation to help save Ventura College summer classes can call or e-mail Morua, 701-5272, Raymond.morua@gmail.com, or Zierhut, 407-5014, tbzierhut@hotmail.com.
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