Students who organized relief included in KOCE spot

Michael Miller

Children in Phuket, Thailand, are not a world apart from those in

Corona del Mar. They live by the ocean in areas popular among

tourists. They, on occasion, enjoy water fights with their friends --

although in a Buddhist country, such as Thailand, getting wet is a

symbol of spiritual cleansing as much as a way of beating the

weather.

After the tsunami in December, however, the two cities had a

significant difference: One had just been leveled by tragedy, and the

other was eager to give. When Sarah Weiland, a graduate of Corona del

Mar High School, visited Phuket in February, she made a connection.

“It was luck,” said Weiland, who works for the nonprofit

Leadership Institute for Teens in Newport Coast. “It was fate. I was

just there and researching, filming a bunch of areas where the

tsunami hit. I began talking to a man who owns the Andaman Holiday

Resort in Krabi, and we began to discuss how students at Corona

really wanted to have an ongoing contact with where they were

donating their money. He had just received a message from a school

that had lost a huge amount of money and supplies.”

Weiland rode across Thailand to investigate, and in March, Corona

del Mar High students raised $4,000 in an all-day charity concert for

the Dow Roong Wittaya School in Phuket. Since then, the community on

the south tip of Thailand has taken steps to rebuild -- and the media

have taken notice. On Monday, KOCE-TV premiered “Calming the Waters,”

a half-hour documentary about Thailand featuring a segment on the

Corona del Mar High students.

“We appreciate it,” said Santi Chudintra, director of the Tourism

Authority of Thailand, at a premier party at the KOCE studio Monday

evening. “The people who live in that area lost many things. Some

lost their parents; some lost their school. The assistance provided

to them is a great thing.”

About two dozen people, including Weiland, her family and several

representatives from the Tourism Authority, gathered on Monday to

watch the program and enjoy Thai cuisine. On display around the tiny

room on the Golden West College campus were pamphlets promoting

tourism -- Thailand’s biggest industry before the tsunami hit.

“Calming the Waters,” directed and narrated by KOCE’s Peter

Murphy, concentrates on Thailand’s culture more than its recent

tragedy, but it also devotes several minutes to the drive at Corona

del Mar High. Along with footage of the benefit concert on the campus

quad, the documentary includes scenes shot at the Dow Roong school in

which students talk about their lives following the tsunami.

In all, Corona del Mar High donated funds to 66 youths who had

suffered major losses.

Weiland, who shot some of the footage and served as associate

producer, went to Thailand with a specific mission in mind. Her

mother, Denise Weiland, advises the Anthro Club at Corona del Mar

High, and students at the school had begun plans for a charity

concert to benefit the tsunami victims.

“When I came back to school after winter break, I was bombarded

with students coming into my office from all different clubs,” Denise

Weiland said. “They all said, ‘We want to do something for the people

in Asia.’”

In February, Sarah Weiland and Leadership Institute founder Lucy

Steinberg ventured around the world in search of a recipient for the

concert revenues. Members of the Anthro Club, which sponsors and

holds charity events in Southern California and abroad, were thrilled

with the eventual choice.

“When the idea was presented by Mrs. Weiland and Sarah and Lucy,

we were blown away by how perfect it was -- a high school helping a

high school,” said Zan Margolis, 16, the Anthro co-president. “The

whole world was donating to places like the Red Cross, and we wanted

to do something a little more personalized.”

Zan, who is interviewed briefly in “Calming the Waters,” had the

experience of watching herself on TV for the first time.

“I thought it was a cool project, and I’m honored to be a part of

it,” she said.