In what has become an annual tradition, four local students were honored with Brentwood Community Council (BCC) Student Awards at the December 2016 BCC meeting.
The awards were established by Jackie Raymond in 2002 to honor local students for their commitment and dedication to community service. The 2016-17 awards were given to four outstanding students:
Archer School for Girls 11th Grader Uma Halsted is the event planner and community coordinator for Archer’s Community Service Leadership Board. She has also worked at the phone banks for Hillary Clinton, coordinated events, and volunteered for Go Campaign, Shofco, Red Cross Blood Drives, The Last Girl and WE Free the Children, and volunteered her time to Heal the Bay, Walk to End Genocide, and Adopt a Family.
Brentwood School Senior Jared Rubin has worked with numerous community partners, including packing food at SOVA Food Bank, serving as a classroom Teaching Assistant at Westside Children’s Center, volunteering regularly at the Armory Winter Shelter for the homeless, and partnering with City Year to help beautify LAUSD schools. In addition to being a peer tutor on campus since 9th grade, Jared’s work extends off campus to help students with special needs through volunteering with Special Olympics and by mentoring and coaching through VIP Soccer where he has served as a VIP buddy to special needs children in a variety of sports. Jared is also Co-President of the school’s Benefacta Civic Leadership Board.
University High School’s, Nancy Gomez, is a senior who has spent over 100 hours volunteering at L.A.’s Best Summer Program, dedicated to providing a safe and supervised after school education, enrichment and recreation program for children ages 5 to 12. In the students, Nancy saw herself, a first-generation, lower income student. Nancy wanted the students to know that anything is possible and she worked to empower the students to become college-bound like herself. Nancy plans to pursue a career in research.
Palisades Charter High School’s Casey Longstreet was one of the youngest students chosen to participate in Camp CHLA (Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.) The weeklong experience allows the student to “shadow” different departments in the hospital. She was a junior counselor at Painted Turtle, a camp for kids and teens with serious illnesses. She was a CIT at River Way Ranch camp, where she became certified by the Red Cross in CPR. She’s a celebrated dancer, and is also involved with Genome Generation, which encourages students to learn about their family medical history, and work towards early detection of hereditary illnesses. Casey’s work on this, and her courage in telling her own cancer story, was the feature of a segment on the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt a few months ago.
