Monday, December 13, 1999
School kids line halls with donations
BY MARK SCHMETZER
Enquirer contributor
FAIRFIELD — What started as a house and was turned into a school has now become, at least for the holidays, a city — the City of Hope.
That's what the staff and students at LaValle School in Fairfield are calling the holiday project for which they are compiling toiletries, cereal, canned goods, diapers, baby formula and other items to be donated to various agencies. Students and teachers gave the hallways street names — Generosity Circle, Caring Cubs Court and Bountiful Boulevard, to name a few — and one group devised a map based on the names. A cutout car displays the end of the line, and the students extend the line with their donations.
“We're making a path all the way around the hallways,” said Diana LaValle, who founded the school in a rented basement in 1980. “We want to get it all the way around and back to the front doors.”
LaValle, a 120-student private, nongraded school based on a theory of “individually guided education,” has sponsored giving projects in previous years, such as a “mitten tree” that is back this year.
The mitten tree is decorated with donated hats, scarves and gloves to be given away.
“We just want to give back to the community,” Ms. La
Valle said. “All of us — the staff, the parents and the children — believe we have an awful lot and there are others who don't, and we need to learn about that.”
“We do it so other kids who didn't have food could get food and have something to eat,” said Allison Ranieri, 8, the daughter of Fran and Mike Ranieri, Fairfield.
The drive is scheduled to end Tuesday. The goods will be distributed by the Feast of Love Ministries project operated by three College Hill churches — College Presbyterian, St. Clare Roman Catholic and College Hill United Methodist — to needy families and local centers serving the homeless, battered women and children, and unwed mothers.
“Our parents and children are very generous people,” Ms. LaValle said. “The children are quite excited and aware.”
Let's have 386 (FUN) with area code
Fire, EMS crews find traffic daunting
About ISO effectiveness ratings
I-71 north reopens after all-day cleanup
Guard answers holiday call to Kuwait
Teachers tiptoe around evolution
GOP shying from gun bill debate
Report touts dam removal benefits
Monroe organizes to oppose Flynt store
Queen City's moments to shine reflected in book
Treatment would end her isolation
Squeezing in some humor
Anonymous 4 merges into one medieval voice
GET TO IT
'Jarboys' croon to young crowd
Over The Rhine blends best band at Christmas show
1st draft of Boone parks study done
Few takers for free health care
Light rail studies back on track
Ludlow budget 6 months late
School kids line halls with donations
Service honors patron saint
Strip club case put on hold
Talawanda weighs levy options
TRISTATE DIGEST
