LA's Best!

This afternoon myself and around 100 of my IT co-workers at Mattel volunteered our time to LA's Best - an afterschool program (3pm to 6pm) for elementary schools in under-privilidged area's of LA. We were split into three groups and went off to our allotted schools. Having avoided the two schools in South Central we headed off by coach to Stoner Elementary in Culver City...

Once we reached the schools we went in groups of 5 to work with the the classes we had been assigned. My group were working with a second grade class helping them with homework and then an art project. They all seemed like great kids, full of character and seemed to be impressed that we worked for Mattel! All the classes met in the playground later and we did some dancing with the kids and took photos...

As we were leaving we drove past few streets of projects and they looked pretty depressing. After school programs like LA's Best keep kids off the streets and according to their presentation, kids who attend are 20% more likely to graduate high school and 35% less likely to be involved in gang related actvities... A worthy cause indeed!

Duy, me (mostly hidden) and Ron at Stoner Elementary...