NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Youths Dig Deep in Earth Day Event

For Alyson Fried, it was a cause worthy of emptying half the money in her piggy bank.

The 7-year-old student at Adat Ari El Day School in North Hollywood was among hundreds who carefully laid dimes, quarters and nickels along a tape the length of the grounds Thursday for the school’s joint Earth Day-Arbor Day fund-raiser to raise money for tropical rain forests.

“I didn’t count it, I just put it down,” Alyson said. “I wanted to help with the rain forests.”

Many private and public schools in the Valley marked Earth Day and Arbor Day with celebrations Thursday. In the past, the Los Angeles Unified School District organized districtwide educational programs related to Earth Day, but this year individual schools were left to decide.

“There’s hardly anyone left doing instructional support at the district level because of budget cuts, so we haven’t been able to do anything,” explained Gerald Garner, science coordinator for L.A. Unified. Garner said he expects all the jobs in his office, including his own, to be eliminated.

The lack of districtwide guidance for Earth Day did not dampen spirits at Andasol School in Northridge, where teachers set up a month of educational events that culminated Thursday in a student art show of projects made with recycled materials.

“We are trying to teach them to use what they have on Earth, that you don’t have to buy things; they can make art without them,” kindergarten teacher Patty Yamano said.

At Adat Ari El, a private Jewish elementary school, change on the students’ “coin line” totaled almost $300 Thursday, enough to purchase and preserve about two acres of endangered rain forest in Belize through the National Arbor Day Foundation, said computer teacher Jim Guiltinan. “The rain forests are so pretty,” said Rebecca Olch, 11, who brought handfuls of change to the school. “If people keep cutting them down, there will be nothing left.”