Boy, 10, Gives Up Skateboard Money but Wins a Friendship

Ask him about what he did and the fifth-grader at Cactus Elementary School mumbles something about “nothing really.”

Then something else about, well, it made him feel good.

The Palmdale youngster is not heavily into interviews.

Luckily, actions speak louder, and more clearly, than a 10-year-old’s words.

What John Gurzenski did first was win $50 in his Boy Scout Pack 382 fund-raising candy sales contest. The money allowed his fantasies about buying a skateboard to become, very nearly, real.

Then he read about a 4-year-old named Matthew Getrost who was diagnosed last July with brain and spinal column cancer.

The 10-year-old asked that his $50 be sent to the young boy’s medical fund at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

It has not been a good year for the Getrost family of Palmdale.

Young Matthew’s father, James, is out of work.

James and his wife, Amy, not only have to deal with Matthew’s illness, but the welfare of their three other children.

Amy Getrost says the family had some medical insurance and the government has also helped, but it is the kindness and compassion of neighbors that has lifted their spirits.

She and Matthew have, since John made his donation last month, made several visits to the Gurzenski household.

The visits have provided some smiles and the opportunity for John to continue his philanthropic work.

“The little guy really likes my Micro Machines,” says John of his new young friend, who is responding well to radiation treatment.

“When I give them to him to play with he wants to keep them, so I let him take them home,” he says.

They Scale Notes Like Sylvester Does Mountains

Darren Davies, the 11-year-old son of Alvin and Denise Davies of Encino, is a celebrity at his school, St. Paul the Apostle in West Los Angeles.

Ditto Eric Hwang, the 12-year-old-son of Chi Ku and Sun Sook Hwang of Van Nuys.

Both Darren and Eric are scholarly and athletic, but that’s not what makes them famous. It’s their educated vocal chords.

The two belong to the 19-member Paulist Boy Choristers at St. Paul’s. Everyone at the school is invited to try out, but only a few make the grade.

So, big deal, right? Every school has a chorus.

Not like this one.

This chorus has, since its beginnings in 1977, been invited to perform in London, Oxford, Rome, Venice, Florence, Salzburg, Paris, New York, San Francisco and Chicago.

It has twice sung High Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and twice for papal audiences at the Vatican.

The group also sang before an audience of 110,000 people at the Los Angeles Coliseum when Pope John Paul II visited in 1987.

It has been in the recording studio with Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Loretta Young, Jon Voight, Betty White and Florence Henderson.

Sunday it will give a concert of Viennese masses at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul the Apostle Church. The $20 admission will help fund the group’s travels this summer and next year.

In order to keep the performance quality up, director Dana T. Marsh tunes the boys up for seven hours each week during the school year, with additional rehearsals during the summer.

“I still have time to make good grades and play tennis, baseball and soccer,” says Eric.

Darren adds: “We have to work hard, but never so hard that it might scar us for life or anything. It’s really lots of fun.”

Want to Get Dolled Up? This Sale’s a Natural

This is another story about how someone beat the Big C and then did well.

There will be no apologies offered for harping on this theme.

In these days of an imploding economy, homicidal anger, drive-bys, a collapsing educational system, Sharon Stone flicks and a “people’s President” who gets $200 haircuts, we need to hear these things.

Five years ago, Northridge resident Gloria Angevine got colon cancer.

She discovered it early, got help and lived to tell the tale.

In celebration, she decided to give something to the American Cancer Society’s Discovery Shop sale, at which more than 300 dolls and Teddy bears will be offered at the Northridge location Saturday.

Angevine has contributed several handmade dolls.

She says the dolls are made from handkerchiefs and that the pattern dates back to the Civil War era.

“Little girls could take them to church because if they dropped them, they wouldn’t make a noise,” she says.

She learned to make them during a stay at Hilton Head, South Carolina. There the dolls sold for $12.95. The Discovery Shop will sell hers for $8.

She and other cancer survivors who have volunteered as contributors and salespeople will wear a ribbon stating that they are survivors.

“That’s to show people that cancer can be beaten,” Angevine says.

Poly Students Flushing Out Cash for Unfunded Activities

With funding cuts in the Los Angeles Unified School District, money for extracurricular activities at high schools is down the toilet.

That’s exactly where students at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley looked to raise slashed funds.

There were 39 students who participated in a Department of Water and Power pilot program to replace old toilets with new, water-saving models in their neighborhood.

The DWP promised it would pay $15 for each toilet that was replaced.

In 12 days the youngsters raised $7,230.

The DWP says it is taking calls from other interested schools.

Overheard

“I am not exactly lazy. I was born tired.”

Woman to luncheon partner at Hamburger Hamlet in Northridge