LA HABRA : Young Poets Raise Money to Aid Tutor

Maria Navarro, a 15-year-old whose boyfriend was killed in a gang fight, took the stage during a fund-raiser last week to tell other youths to try to avoid violence in a poem she wrote.

“Is a gang what it’s meant to be, start out with hundreds and end up with three?” the La Habra High School sophomore recited. “All the bad dudes, they’re all dead, stabbed down the middle or shot full of lead. . . . I don’t know what you feel, but with senseless deaths, I can’t hang.”

The fund-raiser, sponsored by the Chicano Poet Society, raised $100 for Rose Espinoza, 36, a volunteer tutor, to spend on her after-school tutoring program, MAS (Motivating Adolescents to Succeed). The free tutoring is being offered to 34 students in Espinoza’s garage in La Habra.

Maria and other La Habra high, middle and elementary school students joined the Chicano Poet Society at Tlaquepaque Restaurant in Placentia to perform, eat and celebrate Latino culture with music and poetry readings in Spanish and English.

This was the year-old Poet Society’s fifth monthly fund-raiser at the restaurant. Each one raises about $100 for different people and programs throughout the county.

The first event packed the restaurant, and proceeds went to David Vasquez, a volunteer who teaches free Aztec language classes at libraries and churches in Orange and Los Angeles counties. In December, the Poet Society raised money for a Fullerton theater group that offers high school students a chance to join an acting troupe as an alternative to gangs.

January’s fund-raiser helped two Santa Ana families of victims of drive-by shootings pay for funeral expenses. Santa Ana High School students involved in a writing club that publishes a magazine filled with student art and writings were last month’s recipients of the Poet Society’s philanthropy.

Espinoza said she will let her pupils decide what to do with the money they received from the group. Some said they would like to buy pencils and dictionaries to use in the garage, while others said they would like to take a trip to an amusement park.

Espinoza, who takes her students on tours of college campuses and encourages them to join athletic and arts groups, said she works on raising their self-esteem as well as their grades.

Luis Borja, 12, said he couldn’t believe the society was raising money for him. “It makes me feel pretty special,” he said.

Every Poet Society fund-raiser is open to the public. They are held the last Thursday night of each month at Tlaquepaque.