Woodridge Students Volunteer Time For Elderly

Inez’s best bowling days are behind her, when her form was smoother than a pair of two-tone bowling shoes.

But the 80-year-old Spokane woman returned to her glory years last week, with the help of a 13-year-old with huge feet and a big smile.

“I’m here to help you guys today, anything you want to do. Want to go bowling?” Josh Bartyll asked Inez. He rolled her wheelchair up to the make-shift bowling alley in the nursing home activities room.

Inez tossed a strike with the plastic ball and pins.

“Oh, thanks, sweetie,” she said.

Bartyll and classmates in Warren Wheeler’s sixth-grade class at Woodridge Elementary have been lighting up the faces of the North Side’s elderly and needy all year.

They spend one morning a month burning their youthful energy with good deeds. Bartyll’s group entertained ManorCare retirement home residents with card tricks, piano playing and bowling.

Other students did yard work for disabled and elderly shut-ins, painted the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and walked dogs at the Humane Society.

“There is a need for students to get a bigger picture, to recognize the needs of the community,” said Wheeler.

He hopes the community service reinforces lessons in a work ethic, the importance of volunteering, and forces the students, who live in one of the wealthiest and homogenous pockets of Spokane, to see the city’s poverty.

Those lessons are being stressed in the Spokane School District and across the state, as educators try to better prepare students for jobs and life.

“These are the real life lessons we try to teach in the classroom,” said Wheeler, watching his students push senior citizens in wheelchairs down the hall.

The students say they love the community service. “It kind of makes you realize you have so much in your life,” said Katie Liljenberg, 12, who played the piano for ManorCare residents.

Accompanied by Michael Holland, father of one of Wheeler’s students, Bartyll, Liljenberg, Jared Grubb and Betsy Friedlander spent two hours at ManorCare, 6205 N. Assembly, last week.

After a tour, they gathered with a dozen residents in the recreation room. Grubb snookered Julius, a dapper 74-year-old in a porkpie hat and trimmed moustache, into a card trick.

“It was the four of spades, wasn’t it?” asked Grubb.

“Pretty good,” said Julius, chuckling, slapping the arm of his wheelchair.

Bartyll cajoled the residents into a bit of basketball, rolling a small hoop around the room.

“I’m a good shot,” said Jim, an 80-year-old retired Adams College professor. He and his wife, Francis, also a ManorCare resident, have been married 62 years.

Holland, watching from the background, folded his arms and pondered the effect the experience has on the students.

“It’s good for these kids to see the elderly as people,” said Holland, a Methodist pastor.

The Riverside community is gathering to help Debbie Campea, a Riverside Elementary staff member battling bone cancer.

A benefit, dinner and auction in her honor will be held Saturday at the school gym.

Medical insurance covers her surgery, but the proceeds will help pay uncovered expenses, including the costs of flying in a donor to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute and costs of Campea’s post-operation therapy in Seattle.

Her children are close matches, but an international search is being conducted to find a closer bone marrow match.

Campea, 43, is a mother of two Riverside High graduates and has worked at the elementary school for 11 years. She was diagnosed in August.

The benefit is 6-9 p.m. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the school district office. Call Diane Kuntz, 238-4734; Carol Nelson, 292-8850; or Margaret Sandusky, 468-7931, for more information.

Donations can be made at Washington Trust banks.

Diane Skillingstad of Linwood Elementary was named Spokane School District’s distinguished teacher of the quarter.

“Diane never mentions a ‘problem’ child,” said Linwood principal Jim Rodgers.

A reception honoring Dennis Nelson, a fifth-grade teacher at Ridgeview Elementary for 31 years, will be held Wednesday from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Ridgeview staff want to invite all of Nelson’s ex-students to the reception. Call Kathy Williams or Doreen Criswell at 353-5278.

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MEMO: Education Notebook is a regular feature of the North Side Voice. If you have news about an interesting program or activity at a North Side school or about the achievements of North Side students, teachers or school staff, please let us know. Deadline is Monday. Write: Jonathan Martin, Education Notebook, North Side Voice, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. E-mail: jonathanm@spokesman.com. Call: 459-5484. Fax: 459-5482.