School Receives High-Tech Gift

Things were going along normally at Mary Immaculate School on Wednesday until a new multimedia computer and other educational materials arrived in teacher Lerna Ford’s third-grade class.

Pandemonium reigned as uniform-clad students surged to the front of the classroom to view a simulated African safari on a computer screen, squint at slides under a microscope and piece together jigsaw puzzles.

As Ford made sure each student got a chance to try out the new equipment, Principal Kathleen Damisch marveled at the school’s good fortune.

“We were trying to think of ways to improve the students’ hands-on learning . . . but we didn’t have the hands-on materials,” Damisch said.

“It’s like Christmas has come early.”

Mary Immaculate School received the equipment from a neighborhood Lucky supermarket involved in Campbell Soup Co.’s “Labels for Education,” a community outreach program that donates equipment and supplies to needy schools.

Under the program, Lucky stores are awarded points based on their sales of Campbell’s products.

Stores use accumulated points to buy educational materials to donate to schools of their choice.

The Lucky store that donated the equipment to Mary Immaculate is located about half a mile from the Remick Avenue school.

Many students’ parents shop there and some store employees send their children to the 250-student Roman Catholic elementary and middle school, Damisch said.

Beyond those reasons, store managers selected Mary Immaculate because the school sustained major damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Classes have been held in bungalows since May 1994.

Come January, students, teachers, staff, administrators--and the donated equipment--will move into a new facility being built on campus.

For Damisch, the equipment donation is confirmation that the business community is interested in improving educational opportunities for the Mary Immaculate students, many of whom come from the San Fernando Valley’s poorer corners.

“A business has found us and wants to support us. We feel we have a partner,” Damisch said.

“This equipment will benefit not just the children here now, but children who will come here in the future.”