Project Leader Stars Jan/Feb 2007

Celebrate Our Accomplishments & Kickoff the New Year!

Every Year, L.A. Works acknowledges some of our hard working volunteers with a Celebration of our Accomplishments and a Kickoff for the New Year! It was a great afternoon of food, spirits, and merriment where we honored you, our valued volunteers!

Click here to see photos of this fun event!

L.A. Works would like to thank those volunteers who gave 25-50 Hours of Service over the course of the year:

Project Leaders - Chris Babers, Joan Bang, Alexa Benson, Sarah Boyd, Valerie Chiovetti, Charlene Chung, Stephanie Cirone, Tainy Contreras, James Cremin, Veronica Cruz, Luis De Avila, Tim Dickey, Elizabeth Farias, April Fields, Gladys Fung, Rafik Ghazarian, David Ho, Mark Kimura, Chris Martone, Srikant Ranjan, Jay Ross, Tammy Simmons, Clarence Smith, Grant Wadley, Suzanne Wiener, and

Volunteers - Zachary Alderfer, Bethany Beyer, Matthew Carey, Christina Chan, Leni Fleming, Colleen Gately, Stephen Gee, Stephanie Gisondi-Little, Randy Herrera, Jo Kelly, Karen Kuhlman, Halena Le, Ryan Lindgren, Pilar Mendoza, Alicia Montgomery, Jimmy Ngo, Catherine Nguyen, Angela Park, Vanessa Villanueva, Amit Barrett, Sandra Calleros!

L.A. Works wants to especially acknowledge our outstanding youth volunteers who will receive Teen Volunteer Awards!

April Baek, Tainy Contreras, Juan Gascon, Angie Kim, Chelise Sudds, Marquise Washington

L.A. Works Day 2006 was a huge success because of these hard working Project Leaders!

David Bloome (Challengers Boys & Girls Club) Mandana Dayani (Muir Middle School) Cindy Goss (Celerity Nascent Charter School) Ellen Dugas Hoctor (Budlong Ave. Elementary) Mark Kimura (Muir Middle School) Mary Lawler (Roze Room Hospice Interactive Project) Brandon Lucas (Volunteers of America Katrina Project) Tammy Simmons (Budlong Ave. Elementary) Ed Simon (Muir Middle School) Ann Zald (Challengers Boys & Girls Club) and James Zink (Celerity Nascent Charter School)

These dedicated volunteers gave 50+ Hours of Service over the course of the year! L.A. Works salutes you!

Veronica Arevalo, Sandy Boscarino, Teresa Castelli, Hal Christensen, Amy Cimetta, Yolanda Dave , Christy Dean, Michael Hicks, LaJeanne Jones, Cynde Knerr, Mike Kremer, David Lehman, Aurora Maniaul, Juan Mendoza, Kristel Stern, Nancy Tran, William Wira

These volunteers were awarded the Bronze Presidential Service Awards for 100+ Hours of Service. Their commitment to volunteerism is inspirational!

Steven Cota, Alvin Fong, Bobbi Marin, Ed Simon, David Trilling

This is an especially motivated group! Ten Years of Service! L.A. Works is very fortunate to have such faithful volunteers.

Alexa Benson, David Bloome, James Cremin, April Fields, Cindy Goss, Tom Hoctor, Mike Kremer, Connie Leonard, Dinah Posner, Tammy Simmons, Ed Simon, David Trilling, Suzanne Wiener, Ann Zald

The L.A. Works Day 2006 Projects Committee deserves our utmost gratitude for the hard work they put in to make that day possible! Each member of this committee was responsible for a different aspect of the event as well as the management of the L.A. Works Day 2006 sites!

Alexa Benson (registration) April Fields (project leader recruitment) Tom Hoctor (communitcations) Mike Kremer (supplies) Shelia Taylor (skilled experts)

Tom Hoctor! Premier Recipient of the Annual Larry Deckel Award. This award will be given every year to the volunteer whose inspirational knowledge and motivating creativity has taken L.A. Works to ever higher levels of meaningful service to our great city. This year, the recipient of this award has displayed consistent dependability, flexibility, accountability and is a master of organization. Congratulations Tom Hoctor!

A wonderful time was had by all!

L.A. Works/LA Family Housing Film Shoot

Click Here to see photos and read more about this great project!

The LA Family Housing Sydney M. Irmas Transitional Living Center is the only facility in the Valley that accepts and provides longterm shelter to teens and their families. They have an extensive program that includes counseling, life skills training, drug prevention education and School on Wheels classes.

Twice a month, L.A. Works visits the facility with volunteers to engage the teens living there in uplifting activities such as dances, arts and crafts, or a fun conversation. Our goal is to inspire them to explore creative outlets while providing positive role models for them. In this vein, it was decided that the perfect venue for their creative expression would be a film submission to Get LA.

Get LA is an online short film festival and competition conceived by L.A. Works Board members. It's all about Los Angeles -- what makes it great and what could make it better. Visit http://myspace.com/getla to learn more.

Over the course of the past three months, the teens have come up with the concept, written scenes, drawn storyboards, done character and scene work, scouted locations, and worked on costuming in preparation for shooting their film. The teens have participated in writing, acting, storyboard, cinematography and general film making workshops with professionals in those fields.

Click Here to see photos and read more about this great project!

Hands On Schools Martin Luther King Jr. Day Service Project

L.A. Works Hands On Schools Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day of Service was an enormous success. Over 300 volunteers representing LA's diverse communities turned out for a remarkable day of Living The Legacy.

Click Here to see more photos and read about the fabulous event!