GLENDALE : School Donates Aid to Fire Victims

Glendale High School students and staff have collected donations and several bags of supplies for fire victims, including $1,600 for a science teacher who lost her home near Pasadena in last month’s Altadena blaze, officials said Friday.

Fire relief efforts varied from canned food drives to clothing and shoe collections to money donations, school officials said.

The desire to help spread last week after flames swept through the Calabasas and Malibu areas.

“In something like this, everyone pulls together and you really show a sense of unity,” said Gloria Vasquez, assistant principal. “Everyone was thinking it could have been my house.”

Vasquez collected cash donations from staff members after learning that chemistry teacher Sharon Taylorson’s home was among those destroyed by the Altadena blaze. The 170 students that Taylorson teaches were asked to sign and decorate a 2-by-3-foot card that reads: “We are all thinking of you.”

“Her spirits were low because of having lost everything,” said Vasquez, who delivered Taylorson a $1,390 check and the card last Friday. Another $210 check awaits Taylorson, who is scheduled to return to campus today.

Senior Jennifer Raggio, 17, organized her own clothing drive for fire victims.

“I really had a lot of sympathy for those people who lost their homes,” said Raggio, whose house in the Glendale hills burned in 1990. “I knew what they were going through.”

“I was really shocked by the support I got. I really didn’t think that most high school students cared.”

Raggio on Nov. 3 delivered seven bags of clothing and shoes to a Salvation Army truck outside the Glendale branch office.

The student government plans a “non-fire bonfire” homecoming rally Wednesday in which more supplies and cash will be collected and handed over to the American Red Cross, officials said.