Sending their best wishes on a wing

Lauren Vane

At a Friday morning assembly at Harbour View School in Huntington

Beach, the student body was a sea of red, white and blue. Goosebumps

marked the arms of onlookers as the children waved miniature American

flags and sang along to a recorded version of “God Bless the USA”

that blared from the loudspeakers. It was a slice of Americana, and

at Harbour View, it happens every month.

On the first Friday of every month, since the Sept. 11 attacks,

Harbour View has put on a patriotic assembly, with the students and

staff paying tribute to their country in various ways. This month’s

assembly featured local war veterans and the presentation of a giant

$14,000 check to mark the money that students raised for the tsunami

relief fund.

The focus of February’s assembly was to send positive wishes to

the soldiers who are fighting in Iraq, something Harbour View

students are doing by writing messages on paper butterfly cutouts

that will be delivered to the soldiers.

Harbour View graduate Kellie Hawaguchi, 13, of Huntington Beach,

said she wanted to reach out to the soldiers via the Butterfly

Initiative, a community involvement effort sponsored by KOCE-TV.

“It helps out the community,” said Hawaguchi, who now attends

middle school at Mesa View in Huntington Beach.

As Harbour View Principal Roni Ellis led the assembly, she

reminded her students why the butterflies are important to the

soldiers who are in Iraq.

“They’re homesick for their country,” Ellis said.

Harbour View is just one school out of 15 in the Ocean View School

District that participated in the butterfly project, said Mesa View

Principal Leona Olson.

Hawaguchi is using the Butterfly Initiative as a part of her

History Day project, a nonrequired academic endeavor she took on

herself, Olson said. The theme of Hawaguchi’s project is

“Communicating to Iraq,” and Hawaguchi said she felt sending special

messages to the soldiers was a great way to do it.

After the brief assembly, the students filed one by one past

Hawaguchi and dropped their butterfly messages into a box she was

holding. Hawaguchi said she was planning to send the butterflies to

Iraq by Feb. 8.

“People say that one person can’t make a difference, but when you

take a look at 10,000 students across a district, reaching out ...,”

Olson said.