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Published Saturday, December 25,
2004, in the San Jose Mercury News
Kids rally to raise funds for others
By HOLLY HAYES / Mercury News
To the three R's and the ABCs, area students have been adding these
letters to their schoolwork over the holidays: WBF, for Wish Book Fund.
Across Silicon Valley, classroom groups have rallied around specific
stories in the Wish Book series, raising money by doing chores around
the house and for neighbors, holding sales of hot chocolate and baked
goods at school and asking parents to match their donations.
Here is a partial list of participating schools:
• St. Simon School in Los Altos got
involved in the Wish Book in a big way. Participating classes included:
Kindergarten; Grade 3, Room 3; Grade 3, Room 5; Grade 4, Room 7; Grade
5, rooms 10 and 12; and Grade 8, Room 16. They focused on several
wishes, including the PACE school in Sunnyvale's wish to be able to
provide additional dance tutorial time for its autistic students.
• California Junior Scholarship
Foundation at Bernal Intermediate School, Oak Grove School District.
Seventh- and eighth-graders were especially interested in helping to
fulfill wishes for fellow middle school students.
• Mount Pleasant High School, East
Side Union High School District. Donations came from students and
teachers in the foreign language and English departments.
• Peterson Middle School, Santa Clara
Unified School District. Seventh- and eighth-graders in Spanish classes
raised money to help the Cruz family make its trip to Disneyland. They
also made a festive holiday card for the family.
• John Muir Middle School, San Jose
Unified School District. Teacher Pat DeWhitt's leadership students
raised money for the Disneyland trip and sent along a stack of letters
to the Cruz family.
These students joined thousands of Mercury News readers who for 22
years have been helping neighbors in their communities through the Wish
Book.
Wish Book readers are invited to earmark their gifts to particular
stories or causes, or to make general contributions. Donations of any
size continue to be welcome and are tax-deductible.
If more money comes in than is needed for a specific wish, we'll use
the extra funds to pay for other wishes in the series. Any money left
over will provide camp and class scholarships to families who can't
afford these experiences for their children.
Many readers dedicate their donations in honor or memory of loved
ones. Others give anonymously. Following is a partial list of donors:
Sabrina Allen, in honor of Casey and Benjamin Allen; Margaret
Allvey, in honor of Colin Allvey; Rosemary Arca, in honor of C.J.;
Asemtec Inc., in honor of its employees; John Bailie; Lorraine Banks;
Florence L. Bass, in memory of James O. Louie; Michele Bauer; Fred and
Judi Becker, in honor of Bernice Duenkel; Gene and Genie Bernardini;
Emily Bettencourt, in honor of Haley Betterncourt; Diane Beu; Robin and
Dan Biesterveld; Richard and Geraldine Boucher; Harlan Breneman;
Joe Cabrera; Susie Chapa; Marie and Larry Chong; Raymond and Ellen
Chow; Caroline Clark; Clutch Works Etc.; Mr. and Mrs. S. Corio, in
honor of the Bonaserra and Corio families; Lori and Brad Cristofferson;
Gerry Cutshaw, in honor of Randy Richmond; Jane Decker, in honor of
Alta Jaffe; Dorothy Defilippis; Janice Dong; Virginia Dickens; Joan
Ender, in memory of Tom Ender; Suzanne and Allan Epstein; Ruben
Esguerra;
Lyn and Steve Faust, in honor of Greg Harrison; Guy V. Ferrante;
Kathy and Mike Field; Cecilia Fjetland, in honor of Bob; Norma Foster;
Ann Gard, in honor of Elizabeth Cordiero; Gary and Sue Giannini; Shelby
and Chandler Golan; Don and Betty Gordon, in honor of Anna Engle; Adela
Guillen; the Harris family; Pat Heisey; Sue and Drew Henry; Allen W.
and Saundra Lee Hill; the Holdren family, in honor of Marybelle Cody;
Hospital Staff on 2 Center, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center; Ronda
Hruby; Cecilia N. Humecke;
Richard Jardine; Nancy and Jerry Jones; Sarah and Connor Jowett;
Rich Kahn; Les and Mary Kaye; Paige and David Kenigsberg, in honor of
Jim and Joanne Lewis and Sharon LaFontaine; Laurie Knapp; Tony and Judy
Kramer; Georgene Laub, in honor of Adeline Essman; C.S. Leavitt; Helen
Lippert, in honor of her parents; Tammy Liu; Joyce and Stuart Locke, in
honor of Ida Belle Woods; Jose Loya;
Gloria Marquez; John F. McKay and Olga Tokai-McKay; Karen
McLaughlin; the Mercurio family, in honor of Pauline Burrows; Linda and
Ed Mitchell; Judith Monaco; Julie and Pete Moore; Mike and Pat Moore,
in honor of Yvonne and Michael Moore; Sean Murphy, in honor of Mary Ann
Murphy; Glen and Gloria Nakamatsu; David Ness; Katherine O'Doherty, in
honor of Sara O'Doherty; Anna Olivera; John and Joann O'Loughlin; Lisa
O'Neill-Garland, in honor of Antonio Jovan Young; Eileen M. O'Pray, in
honor of Mary O'Pray and William Britton; law office of Mark K. Oto;
Shirley and Terry Ota; Dr. and Mrs. Lowell S. Oxsen;
Melva and Bascom Palmer; Mr. and Mrs. J. Paravagna; Peter and June
Pattison, in honor of Thomas and Gladys Dunbar; Gilbert Pennington; the
Phan family; Anne C. Pound, in honor of Joy Fox Hobson; Jacqueline and
Peter Prillinger; Satyanarayana Rao Raparla; Roger and Cynthia Reedy;
Lisa Reiss; Arlene and Mike Rexford; C.D. Robinson, in honor of Heinz
G. Delmonte; Frederick C. Roettger; Lena E. Romano; Douglas C. Rose, in
honor of Campbell and Parker Rose; Vicki Ross, in honor of Opal Favero
and in memory of Charles ``Mike'' Favero;
Judy Sakasegawa; G.S. and K. Satya; Monica Severson and family;
Zahra and Asadullah Sayeed; Bob and Irene Shoberg; Stephanie Shoffner;
Frank and Olivia Soza-Mendiola; Marie S. Smith; Krishna Srinivasan;
Shobha Srinivasan, in honor of Chandran Tharoor; Jean Stevenson; Meena
and Rohan Subramaniam; Jean and Gordon Swanson, in honor of Kevin
Morgan; Tony Swanson, in honor of Randall and David Swanson; Ann
Taguchi; Jimsy Taix; the Tarantino family; M. Thomson; Rena Trott, in
honor of Ruth Sanders; Tats and Rose Tsunekawa;
Georgina Van Horn, in honor of Maggie Holder and Sandy Mogensen; Kay
Walding; Kimberly Wallis; the Richard Walter family; Mr. and Mrs.
Lawrence Weinberg; the Weisners, in honor of George Weisner; Jack
Wells; Sue Westphal; Harold Whalley; Bonnie J. Wiebrecht; Merry
Wilkins; Nancy Yeager; Ray and Rafaela Yniguez, in honor of Concepcion
Rodriguez; Adela Zapata; John Zasio.
• Special thanks to the following
children who pooled their efforts on behalf of the Wish Book, with help
from P2P-Xchange.com, a parent-to-parent resource-sharing site:
Travis and Elizabeth Abate; Piyali and Poulomi Banerjee; Rahul Basu;
Trisha and Tinnie Basu; Tiara Bhatacharya; Samir Datta; Nandini Datta;
Aakash and Saagar Ghai; Greg and Doug Lukanc; Ratul and Rohit
Mukhopadhyay; Smriti Pramanik; Ayushi and Shivaal Roy; Trisha and
Tripti Singhal. And: parents Risa Ghosh and Sue and Diptish Datta.
Here's how you can help fulfill a wish:
ONLINE:
When you read the Wish Book stories, links to donate are included,
so that you can earmark your donations through our secure server.
BY
MAIL :
Click here to download*
a Holiday Book donation form. Simply fill it out, attach your check
or credit card information and mail it to the Mercury News, c/o
Wish Book Fund, 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190
* To view and print this
form, you will need Acrobat Reader. Free Acrobat downloads at www.adobe.com/acrobat.
QUESTIONS
ABOUT WISH BOOK?
Contact Holly Hayes, Wish Book coordinator at (408) 920-5374 or email wishbook@mercurynews.com.
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