IN THE CLASSROOM:

Taking an unusual vacation to South Africa and Malau, Botswana, Corona del Mar High School student Leanne Parsons was given the opportunity to meet a child she sponsored through World Visions.

It wasn’t the most celebratory of unions. He had just lost both his parents to AIDS, slept on the ground in a shack with his siblings and was quiet, communicating very little with Leanne during the beginning of the visit.

But later he opened up, Leanne said, and he helped make an impact on Leanne more than she could have imagined.

“I really wanted to come back and tell people about it,” she said.

And that is what Leanne has done.

For her senior project at Corona del Mar High School, Leanne has used her experience to launch an educational campaign, as well as a charitable fundraiser, to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by those living in African nations.

“I decided to make my senior project a practical thing rather than just something to graduate,” said Leanne, 17. “I wanted to do something that made a difference.”

The requirements of the assignment were that students had to learn and do something new, organize a project, do field work and research and write a paper. Projects come to fruition when they are presented by students to faculty members and representatives of the school district. She has made posters, conducted fundraising and researched her project.

“Did you know that at least 25 million more people will die of HIV/AIDS?” she asked. “Did you know a child dies every 15 seconds from water-related diseases?”

Leanne is trying to do her part to get her peers involved and educate them on the world outside of Corona del Mar.

“I think it’s just great having it raise awareness, making them think about things other than their day, their life right now, where they are at or where they are living,” she said.

And she has seen solid response from other students.

Leanne sold bracelets at lunch every day for the past week helping to raise funds for Threads, an organization that provides help to children orphaned by AIDS. On her first day, she sold more than 150 bracelets. By the end of the week, the total was more than 600.

“I find it really admirable,” said Michele Williams, 17, a friend of Leanne who is doing her senior project on health care in Haiti. “I think she has had a big impact on people because she has such a warm spirit and is friendly.”

Leanne received help from a club on campus, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, of which Leanne is the president. She also had to go through ASB to get approval for her fundraising effort.

But Leanne credits most of what she has done to someone who came before her whom she admires.

“I got it from my sister,” Leanne said of the sibling who made a 25-minute documentary of a similar trip for her senior project two years ago.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.