Viewpoint students donate their time at Zeitgeist
By Connor S. Ferguson Special to The Acorn

SHARING- A group of Viewpoint School students gather at school after volunteering at the Zeitgeist Community Learning Center, an after-school program for elementary school children in the Crenshaw District of South Los Angeles. Back row, from left: Nicole Lotte, Jared Stern, Valerie Pitsch, Hunter Pritchard and Alex Van Trigt. Front row: John Anderson, Cherish Pichetrungsi, Nicole Klein and Michelle Germain. Not pictured: Cassidy Case.

Although students at Viewpoint School in Calabasas are required to complete 45 hours of community service as a graduation requirement, several have logged many more than that, volunteering in the after-school program for elementary-age children at the Zeitgeist Community Learning Center in South Los Angeles.

Those students were recognized at this week's meeting of the Calabasas City Council.

As part of their required community service, Viewpoint students Jared Stern, Michelle Germain, Alex Van Trigt, Cassidy Case, John Anderson, Nicole Lotte, Cherish Pichetrungsi, Valerie Pitsch and Hunter Pritchard have been making the trip to the Zeitgeist Center several times a month since August of last year to volunteer their services.

Many of the freshmen have volunteered more than 200 hours this year alone, and some have been volunteering for much longer. They've also recruited other Viewpoint students to offer their services at the facility. There are now 12 Viewpoint students and three alumni mentoring and tutoring at Zeitgeist.

Zeitgeist opened its doors in 2004 in the Crenshaw district of South Los Angeles, an area in which the level of violent crime is more than double the L.A. County average. Founders Jake Phillips and Jennifer Welsh saw the need for a healthy afterschool environment where the children of Crenshaw could be provided with a respite from their neighborhood surroundings.

Since then, Zeitgeist has blossomed into a nourishing place where elementary schoolchildren can get help with their homework and enrich their development with extracurricular science and art projects. Recently, they have taken interesting field trips including visits to the California Science Center, the Aquarium of the Pacific, UCLA Stunt Ranch and the Ocean Institute in Orange County.

"It's really fulfilling for us," said student volunteer John Anderson. "It makes me extremely happy to know that I'm brightening someone else's day."

In addition to tutoring the children and chaperoning some of the field trips, the Viewpoint volunteers also organized a holiday party last December, complete with a magician, a piñata, presents for each child and an appearance by a member of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department canine unit.

They were also the driving force behind the Swim-athon held at Pierce College on April 15 to benefit the learning center. Swimmers from Viewpoint, the Sting Ray Swim Team and the Calabasas Waves Swim Team completed some 11,200 laps that day, raising $31,400 in net proceeds for Zeitgeist.

Far from being the first students from Viewpoint to devote their time to Zeitgeist, the current crop of volunteers is following in the footsteps of alumni Chris Fletcher, Donald Stern and Tristan Brown. The alumni volunteered their time at Zeitgeist from 2004 until they went off to UC Berkeley and UC Irvine last fall. Fletcher was instrumental in getting the Zeitgeist technology program off the ground, teaching the children basic computer skills like using the Internet and Microsoft Word.

The computers installed at the center also allow the children to log on and get help with homework from Viewpoint students over the Internet, even on days when no mentors are able to come to the facility.

The volunteers' drive and determination hasn't been slowed down by the lazy days of summer, either. They were part of Zeitgeist's Summer of Science program, which included an overnight trip to Sea World, where the children stayed in the shark exhibit area.

Inspired by the interest of some of the children who attended the Swimathon, Viewpoint students have offered swimming lessons to children from Zeitgeist.

According to volunteer coordinator and Viewpoint parent Deborah Stern, the Zeitgeist children have benefited immensely from the tutoring they've received. The interest of some of the children in becoming lawyers, doctors and scientists has spurred the High Expectations Program, funded by a grant from Toyota Motor North America Inc.

Among other things, the program counsels parents on how to be advocates for their children and has taken children from Zeitgeist on tours of college campuses such as Cal State Los Angeles and Pepperdine University.

In addition to the student volunteers' time, $125,000 per year is needed to keep the Zeitgeist program going. Donations can be made online at www.zclc.org or sent to the facility at 4501 W. Martin Luther King Blvd., Los Angeles, 90016.

Connor S. Ferguson is senior at Viewpoint School in Calabasas, a nondenominational, coeducational school of 1,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.