The gift of homework

June Casagrande

COSTA MESA -- Sometimes the best presents are the ones you earn for

yourself -- a fact self-evident to 11-year-old Cassandra Menendez as she

pedaled her shiny new bicycle Saturday morning.

“I earned it from doing homework,” she said.

Cassandra is one of about 160 children who swarmed the Christmas tree

at Westside Boys and Girls Club early Saturday morning to cash in on hard

work they had done throughout the year.

The club’s after-school program awards points to students who do their

homework there and have it corrected by staff. It takes months to see the

fruit of their labor -- toys for themselves and even gifts for their

parents and other family members. Then, on one designated day before

Christmas, the students can come in and use their points to purchase

gifts from under the tree. The gifts are donated by Ernst & Young, Toys

For Tots, other organizations and community members.

“These are mostly low-income kids, so it helps them out a lot,” said

David Lewis, branch director for the Westside Boys and Girls Club.

Lewis said about 300 children, mostly students of Rea and Pomona

elementary schools and TeWinkle Middle School, participate in the

after-school program year-round. He explained that doing homework is a

mandatory part of the club’s after-school academic program.

Once the children have their work corrected by staff, they get points

toward Christmas gifts as well as some more immediate rewards: hand

stamps that allow them to participate in activities at the club and field

trips.

“I think kids get more out of toys and things if they earn them,”

Lewis said. “This works well at getting them to work toward a goal

because there’s a clear correlation between how hard they work and what

they get.”

In Cassandra’s case, serendipity played a role, too. The Rea

Elementary fifth-grader knew she wanted the girl’s bike with a bell and a

basket -- the only one like it under the tree Saturday morning. But she

also knew that the 190 homework points she had earned didn’t give her

first pick. There were a handful of other children who could have called

dibs.

“I was lucky because none of the other girls who had more points than

me wanted the bike,” she said.

And hopefully, the benefits of the program will live on long after the

bike joins the ranks of a grown-up’s forgotten toys.

“Doing the homework helps,” she said. “I got all B’s and A’s on my

report card.”

-- June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .