La Puente Twins Selected to Tour East Bloc as Student ‘Ambassadors’

For Joann and Talolo Lepale, political and social changes in Eastern Europe and Moscow have been something to experience through the evening news. But now they just might get the chance to bring home a piece of the Berlin Wall.

The Lepale twins, 16, have been chosen to participate this summer in the People to People High School Student Ambassador Program. People to People is a nonprofit organization that takes selected students from around the United States on learning trips to different parts of the world. Students are chosen on the basis of academic achievement, community involvement and recommendations from teachers and counselors.

One of the deciding factors in the Lepale twins’ selection was their three-year involvement with a community drug-prevention program called “Friend-to-Friend,” according to Delegation Leader Patricia Sako. Both Talolo and Joann go to neighborhood schools to talk about ways to avoid getting involved with drug abuse.

The Lepales, juniors at Bassett High School, have a problem. All students must pay their own way, which means the Lepale twins, whose mother is a hospital worker and father is a mechanic, must come up with $4,000 each before April 1.

Sako said it is a lot easier for other families to come up with the money because they usually have only one child to pay for. But the Lepale twins are inseparable.

Ever since they were notified of their acceptance in January, the twins, who have never traveled out of the country, have worked to raise money. They, along with their parents and 8-year-old sister, have devoted several weekends to collecting cans and newspapers.

They have sent out 110 letters to clubs and organizations in the San Gabriel Valley asking for donations. In March they are planning a car wash and a yard sale. So far, they have collected $410.

“We have been doing everything we can to raise the money,” said their mother, Yonneta Lepale. “I have been following every lead anybody gives me.”

“I’m the proudest mother on the block . . . I just wish I had the money to pay for the trip myself.”

The Lepale twins are the only students selected so far in the San Gabriel Valley; others were being interviewed last week.

If they raise the money, they will join 2,000 other high school students on a 31-day trip to England, the Soviet Union and Poland, as well as the cities of Paris, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and East and West Berlin. The students stay at college dorms, hotels and in Dutch and English homes.

The trip will include a visit to historic sites and government offices, including the Kremlin in Moscow, the birthplace of composer Frederic Chopin in Poland and a walk through the gardens of Versailles in France.

“All these years we’ve been reading about these places and now we have the chance to actually see them,” Joann said. “It’s going to be like walking through a history book.”

The twins said one of the main places they look forward to seeing is the new McDonald’s in Moscow.