Students Hope to Take Video on Road Again : Ojai: An Oak Meadow School group needs to raise $6,000 more to escort its work about saving the environment to a U.N. conference in New York.

The idea took root in an environmental class at the Oak Meadow School in Ojai two years ago.

A dozen teen-agers decided that they had to get the word out to their fellow students that they could do things--even little things--to help clean up the planet.

In tune with the times, they decided to make a video.

And now--adept at basic marketing skills necessary at all levels of filmdom these days--they are planning to take their show on the road to New York.

The students, who have received lots of help from the arts-conscious leaders of the Ojai community, already have raised thousands of dollars to finance a trip to the United Nations to deliver their message to the world.

They need about $6,000 more, but they are optimistic that they will raise it in the next two weeks.

In some respects the fund-raising effort has overshadowed the relatively unassuming 20-minute video put together by the Oak Meadow students with the help of Lawrence Lanoff, a professional producer.

The homey video, entitled “We Can Make a Difference,” splices footage of a pristine-looking Earth photographed from outer space with a question-and-answer session in which young people from the Ojai area voice their opinions about what they can do as individuals to clean up the planet.

The video was entered in the Chicago International Film Festival last year, where it won a certificate of merit.

With funds raised personally and through donations from Ojai residents and merchants, four of the students flew to Geneva last year to present the video to United Nations officials.

And on Friday, several Oak Meadow students attended a professionally orchestrated news conference to talk about where the film has been and what’s needed to get the film to the next stage--a May screening at a United Nations youth conference in New York.

U.N. officials, who named the conference “We Can Make a Difference” in honor of the video, asked the students to present the video at the conference, as well as to videotape the event and present a workshop the students have developed called “The Environmental Race.”

But the students need more money to get to New York--and that sparked a second wave of fund raising.

Before Friday’s news conference, Oak Meadow students had raised about $1,000 at a huge garage sale, sold cookies and candy and received donations from local businesses and residents to raise about $11,000, said Marilyn Mosley, school director.

Before Friday, about $14,000 was still needed, Mosley said.

But after Friday, there was less cause for financial worry.

An American Airlines official announced that the company would provide round-trip tickets for 20 students as well as transportation for teacher and parent chaperones.

A Santa Barbara radio official said he would donate $5,000 in air time next week to promote the cause.

And Reps. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) and Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) showed up to speak out for the students’ cause.

“In an age where young people will spend twice as many hours in front of a television as in a classroom,” Lagomarsino said, “this outreach effort speaks to youth in a very familiar medium.”

Oak Meadow is a small private school with about 25 students, who pay tuition of $120 to $150 a month, Mosley said. The school rents classroom space from the St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Ojai.

The whole experience has inspired Oak Meadow graduate Ramaa Mosley, who helped produced and direct the video, to work toward a career as a Hollywood director.

“I thought about it, about being in film or video,” said Mosley, the daughter of the school’s director and a part-time worker for a production company in Hollywood. “I could affect thousands or millions of people.”

Other students said they hoped that they can at least help other students find out what they have learned about cleaning up the Earth.

“We wanted to let kids know because a lot of time kids feel helpless,” student Rebecca Wolk said. “We wanted them to know they can do something.”