NORTHRIDGE : Kobe Victims Get $4,600 From 11 Area Schools

Trisha Boger, 11, emptied her piggy bank and opened her heart. She could relate to the kids in Kobe.

“I knew how they felt,” said Trisha, a fifth-grader at Calahan Street Elementary School in Northridge, referring to the quake that devastated Kobe, Japan, two months ago. “It was the same thing we felt, but two times bigger. I love kids, and I want them to have an education.”

Trisha is hardly alone. Students from 11 San Fernando Valley elementary schools collected more than $4,600 for Kobe victims. On Monday, Jonathan Kaji, a California trade representative in Tokyo, received the check during an assembly at Calahan.

“A lot of people did wonderful things for us after the quake,” said Rick Wetzell, Calahan’s principal, “and we felt we needed to do something.”

The drive included schools in Northridge, Granada Hills and Chatsworth that were hit hard by the Northridge quake. Students also made drawings and wrote letters that will be given to youngsters in Japan.

The money collected at Calahan--$363--along with an additional $174 from the school’s PTA, will be donated to Hiraki Elementary School in Nishinomiya, which suffered substantial damage.

“It will help the students to recover more quickly, knowing their counterparts in California a year later are back on their feet,” Kaji said.

They may be back on their feet, but they’re still a bit wobbly. In fact, Wetzell said, one reason for launching the fund-raising drive was to aid the healing process for Calahan students still affected by last year’s shaker.

“When you walk down the street, you still see the rubble,” Wetzell said. “By reassuring others, in effect, you’re reassuring yourself.”

Wetzell said Cal State Northridge counselors still come to campus each week to meet with students.

“Whenever we have a little aftershock, I get scared,” Trisha said.