Local students support Charity Checks

Students in Calabasas and Los Angeles wrote checks to various charity organizations and received a visit from a special guest June 11 as part of a philanthropic program started by a California Lutheran University professor and his wife.

Math instructor Victor Dorff and his wife, Lisa Sonne, founded the Charity Checks organization and its offshoot, the Charitable Literacy program, which has been used in classrooms throughout the United States since 1999.

Students in Ruth Kritz's Computer Elements class at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas created greeting cards with a giving theme that they sent with their Charity Checks to various nonprofit organizations.

Julia Mason's students at Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles raised $1,200 for charity from a lemonade stand.

Each student announced which charity they chose to support and filled out a Charity Check to the organization.

The young philanthropists at both schools received copies of "A Kid's Guide to Giving" and a visit from the author, Freddi Zeiler. Zeiler, a student at University of California, Berkeley, commended the students for their projects and talked to them about the meaning of charity.

For more information about making donations through Charity Checks, contact Lisa Sonne at (323) 702-3684 or lisa@charitychecks.us.