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 .
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