What do desert plants, homeless folks, and President Barack Obama have in common?
They each played a role when a bunch of third-grade students in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Los Angeles set out to help the homeless by responding to Obama's call to action and putting their recent studies of desert environments to creative use.
The plan came together on the morning of June 6 at the Para Los Niños Family Learning Complex facility at 1617 W. 7th Street, a campus located on the eastern edge of Downtown. That's where the kids from Gabriela Cardenas' class at Para Los Niños Elementary Charter School opened a cafe with a desert theme, offering diners such fare as waffles with agave syrup, dishes with nopales — or tender cactus strips — and other dishes that fit the theme.
Businesses in the donated the food, and community members paid $25 a plate to dine as part of a fundraiser, with proceeds to go to one of Downtown's homeless shelters.
The effort amounted to a chain of lessons the children have learned this school year. The first link came when Para Los Niños administrators rented a stadium-sized screen to allow all 400 of the charter school students to watch Obama's inaugural address in January, when the new president issued a "Call to Service."
The children later began studies of desert habitats in their science class, learning about the environment and finding out that some of the stuff that grows amid all that sand is edible.
Credit the kids for the final link in the chain. Many of them noticed the many homeless individuals who live on streets and sidewalks and vacant lots throughout Downtown and surrounding areas. The kids became concerned about the homeless folks and decided to respond to Obama's call for service. Then they used the lessons from their science class to come up with something unique to offer in return for the donations to help the homeless.
It turned out to be a delicious bit of fun for a good cause, raising $1,000 for the homeless.
Para Los Niños is a non-profit provider of social services and education, with various operations throughout Los Angeles and surrounding cities, providing assistance to 4,600 low-income children and youth and 4,000 challenged families from 28 sites.
Sam Hassan is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Photos by L.A. Garment & Citizen
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