First-Class Pen Pals : Volunteers’ Letters Help Struggling Students Succeed

Struggling minority students at an inner-city campus in Long Beach have discovered something missing from most elementary schools: a correspondence course.

Nearly 200 adults have spent the school year exchanging letters with third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, encouraging the youngsters to stay in school and stay optimistic about life.

Both the mail and the message got through: On Monday the children dressed in their best clothes and met their pen pals for the first time. Most vowed to stay in touch during the summer--and beyond.

“Having a personal pal will keep me in school,” said fourth-grader Eduardo Ordaz, 10, who dined on a scrambled egg and orange juice breakfast at the Long Beach Sheraton Hotel with Ron Yaffee, a 61-year-old former manufacturing executive (“my company was downsized”) from Seal Beach.

At the next table, Saneth Eang, 9, hugged pen pal Doris Topsy-Elvord and handed her a crayon sketch depicting Saneth’s home. Colorful butterflies and a rainbow filled the sky over the house. On the back was Saneth’s address.

“I have learned a lot from you and I’m going to be just like you,” said the Thailand-born girl to her pen pal, who is a Long Beach city councilwoman.

Teachers at Whittier Elementary School said they started the letter-writing program with a single class three years ago. They discovered that the mail is a good way to deliver role models to a place that boasts a 98% minority enrollment--with most children starting out unable to speak English.

Christine Lungren-Maddalone, the school’s language arts specialist who this month will be inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame, said volunteer letter writers included lawyers, realty agents, scientists, small business owners and a postal clerk who became intrigued when she saw block-printed envelopes in the mail.

She said she tries to recruit virtually every adult she encounters to help out.

Forest ranger Bob Signor of Ione, Calif., was signed up to be fourth-grader Vannakrith Tan’s pen pal when Lungren-Maddalone sat next to him on a flight to Sacramento. State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren--who is her brother--corresponded with fourth-grader Robert Brown.

Educational consultant David Brooks of Santa Barbara sent postcards to Sokheng Bo, 10, during business trips. Then he sent the boy a tiny atlas that traced his travels.

Cable television show host Maureen Nunn of Rancho Palos Verdes exchanged information about family and favorite books with pen pal Elodia Lopez, 9.

Youngsters said they got good advice in the mail.

“He wrote me to stay in school and study and I will,” said 9-year-old Ivan Nievez, a fourth-grader who shared breakfast with pen pal LeRoy Moody, Long Beach port operations manager for Toyota.

The correspondence helped persuade third-grader Tam Nguyen that he wants to be a scientist. High school teacher Richard DeCoudres, 45, of Los Alamitos stressed the value of education in “nice letters,” said Tam, 8.

Fifth-grader Daniel Aguirre brought samples of his math and social studies homework to show pen pal Henry Zimmerman, 45, a parks recreation supervisor from Irvine. Eleven-year-old Daniel also painted a picture of himself and Zimmerman.

“He sent me a Christmas card with his family’s picture, so I knew how to draw him,” Daniel said.

In February, Daniel’s mother died of cancer. “I wrote him it was time for him to be a leader,” Zimmerman said. “I was real concerned he not be discouraged. I didn’t want him to start hanging out with the wrong people.”

Daniel said his father may move him and his 11 brothers and sisters to Guadalajara, Mexico, this summer. Zimmerman urged the boy to send him his new mailing address if he moves.

“I’ll write,” Zimmerman promised.