Service-bound senior mission

Michael Miller

Not all high school students approach their senior projects with

enthusiasm. Even fewer see them as acts of public service.

But at least one person in the district will be pleased with

Corona del Mar High School senior Elyse Avila’s project this year.

Last fall, Avila decided to devote her senior project to providing

financial aid to one Latino student in the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District. Next month, the first Avila Scholarship Fund,

totaling $2,500, will go to a male student at Estancia High School.

Avila won’t reveal his name in advance.

So Avila, 18, of Newport Beach, will end her high school career on

a triumphant note. But not before she learned how difficult

philanthropy can be.

“It was much harder than I’d believed,” she said last week during

the senior project fair at Corona del Mar High. “There was a lot more

organization and business skills (involved) than I imagined.”

Avila’s project was one of approximately 360 showcased in the

small gym at Corona del Mar High last week. Each senior at the school

had to write a letter of intent in the fall, and then devote at least

20 hours during the year to their projects.

The end result of their work was to be a seven- to 10-page

research paper, turned in as part of their English grade, and a

visual display in the gym.

Last week, faculty members reviewed the students’ displays in the

gym and graded them according to categories. On June 9 and 10, a

panel of community judges will observe the students making

eight-minute speeches on their projects.

Avila certainly had the right connections to rally public support;

her family runs the Avila’s El Ranchito restaurant chain in Los

Angeles and Orange Counties. She started by posting notices in the

restaurants and sending out donation requests to friends. When

responses were slow, she approached her school’s counseling staff.

They in turn connected her with the counselors at Estancia, the least

affluent high school in the district.

During the year, Avila worked with the Estancia counseling office,

posting fliers in the commons and calling in students to tell them

about the scholarship. In the end, she received 11 applications --

and raised more than twice as much money as she had planned.

Teacher Lori Trotman, one of the display judges, said many

students had committed themselves to ambitious projects this year.

Kotrina Keichline-Jasulaitis, 18, created a website called “Teens

Across the World,” and invited students in other countries to post on

it. Nick Farnam, 19, wrote a research paper on race in comic books

and created his own black superhero, the Avenger.

Trotman summarized her notion of the ideal senior project: “I

think somebody who picked something they really got into and took off

with it.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at michael.miller@latimes.com.