Redondo Beach Girl Wins Grand Prize in Ecology Art Contest

BRAZIL BOUND: Erin Stelzer, a fourth-grader at Beryl Heights Elementary School in Redondo Beach, received the grand prize of a $5,000 savings bond for college and a trip to the Brazilian rain forest in the Sebastian hair company’s Little Green creative arts program.

Erin’s drawing and collage was chosen from 250,000 entries submitted from eight countries, ranging from the Dominican Republic to Japan.

The Little Green program, part of the company’s worldwide eco-awareness campaign, invites children between 5 and 12 years old to express their environmental hopes and fears through art.

In the prize-winning collage, Erin, 9, depicts herself in the center of the page with the chaos of the world--wars, drug dealing, riots, pollution and domestic violence--swirling around her, and she asks, “Is this the world I’m going to grow up with?”

The youngster said she has seen negative things happen and would like to make a difference.

“I just want to help the world,” Erin said. “I don’t want it to turn out bad.”

Myra Scheer, spokeswoman for the hair care company, said Erin’s drawing was chosen because of its depth.

“Erin addressed all the world issues, from domestic violence to pollution to the Gulf War, and yet her message was of hope. (In her collage) she also pointed to a family holding hands in front of a church,” Scheer said. “The more I looked at it the more I saw.”

Erin and her mother, Blenda de la Roca-Stelzer, will leave for Manaus, Brazil, next month for a week of jungle tours sponsored by Sebastian International.

“It’s the most exciting place I’m going to be going to,” Erin said. “I’ll see nice-smelling trees, alligators and colorful birds.”

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CHANGES FOR GARDENA: Gardena High School, which has had its share of racial tension in recent years, would be annexed into the city of Gardena under a proposal presented to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The idea, proponents say, would enhance security at the school because Gardena police could better respond to emergencies at the school. The school would remain in the Los Angeles school district.

“Gardena would better service the high school if (the high school) was in the city,” said Warren Furutani, a Los Angeles school board member who represents the South Bay/Harbor Area.

The LAUSD police would continue to patrol the area, but the Gardena Police Department, which is about a mile from the high school, would have jurisdiction to respond to school emergencies, Furutani said. Los Angeles police and school district security currently handle campus emergencies.

The Los Angeles school board will vote on Furutani’s motion next month. If passed, it will go before the Los Angeles City Council. The Gardena City Council has already endorsed Furutani’s motion.

“I’m in favor of it,” Gardena Mayor Donald L. Dear said. “This doesn’t speak unfavorably about the Los Angeles Police Department, but they’re just taxed.”

Last November, the school was rocked by fights and shouting matches when a disturbance broke out after a school assembly.

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A HELPING HAND: A volunteer group of parents and residents has been formed in Torrance to raise money for the city’s school district.

The group, called the Torrance Education Foundation, hopes to enhance public education in the 20,000-student district by raising as much as $500,000 a year, said David Adelstein, board member for the foundation.

“State funding for education is inadequate,” he said. “The money isn’t enough to provide Torrance children the education they deserve. If education is going to be of the best kind, it’s up to the parents.”

Neighboring Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula school districts are benefiting from similar foundations created by volunteers in those cities.

To date, the Torrance foundation has collected about $6,000 from 10 local corporations, Adelstein said. In three weeks they intend to mail information bulletins to 14,000 families with children in Torrance schools.

“The money will go directly to the district,” he said, and will be used for programs that parents have requested like additional instructional assistant time, more advanced classroom technology, better-equipped libraries and more field trips.

Adelstein, a father with two children in Carr Elementary School, said he has been involved in the district for three years and has already seen cuts affect his children’s classrooms. He said class sizes have grown and the number of instructional assistants in the school has been cut in half.

“If we, as a community, want education that will equip our children to be responsible adults, the community will have to come up with the money.”

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THE WISDOM OF SENIORS: Thirty-five senior citizens from the Retired Senior Volunteer Program will participate in the agency’s Special Friends program this school year, offering their services to 11 elementary schools in the Torrance Unified School District.

“We’d want to help them along,” said Virginia Lawrence, director of the program. “We’ll work with them one-on-one to bring them up to grade level.”

Volunteers will help the students in reading, math and spelling or as playground monitors and traffic guards “depending on the needs of the schools,” Lawrence said.

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NEW FACE ON CAMPUS: John Howard has been named principal of Gardena High School. Howard was principal at Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga and is replacing Kathy Lum, who left Gardena High to become principal at North Hollywood High School.