6 Students Honored at Dodger Stadium

Six students from Sepulveda Middle School in North Hills who planned a school dance and donated half the proceeds to charity were honored in a pregame ceremony on the field at Dodger Stadium this week.

The Sepulveda students were among six groups selected as grand winners in the Dodgers’ “Team Esteem Program,” a public service project also sponsored by the Times In Education program and the Foundation for Self-Esteem.

Working within a team, students were required to scan newspapers to identify a major problem in their area and then develop a plan of action to help solve it. The Sepulveda group identified poverty as a major problem in that area and decided to put on a dance to raise money for charity.

The dance, held at the end of the school year in June, raised more than $400, said Julie Padilla, an English and English as a second language teacher at Sepulveda who served as the faculty advisor for the project.

Half of the money was donated to MEND, a Pacoima social service agency that provides food, clothing, career counseling and other services to residents of the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“All of the kids in the class participated, but these six took the lead and did the most work,” said Padilla of Luis Perez, Alejandro Garnica, Cynthia Gomez, Sandra Cortez, Victor De Luis and Patty Ramirez.

Before the Dodgers played the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday evening, students from the six winning groups were introduced to the crowd and presented with award certificates and Dodger caps and programs.

“We were 10 feet from Mike Piazza and the rest of the Dodgers, which was very exciting for the kids,” Padilla said.

Luis Perez, 15, who will attend Monroe High School this fall, said he took his mom and his younger brother and sister with the four tickets he was given for being part of a winning team.

“I really wanted to take my mom to Dodger Stadium. She had never been to a big stadium before,” Luis said. “She thought it was really cool that I got to go on the field. I thought so, too.”