Class Operation

It started last year with a walk.

Language-arts teacher Veronica Lafrossia told her class at MacArthur Intermediate School in Santa Ana about a fund-raiser for the Alzheimer’s Assn.

Lafrossia felt compelled to participate in the Memory Walk because a colleague’s husband suffers from the disease. She soon found that several of the students wanted to get involved too.

“We started getting interested in memory, and the students’ participation in the walk led to more interest, so we arranged to have someone from the Alzheimer’s Assn. talk to us,” says Lafrossia. “After, the class was invited to do an art project for this year’s walk.”

The assignment was to create something that represented an entire life of memories of someone with Alzheimer’s. In Orange County alone, there are about 40,000 people with the illness.

Lafrossia turned to Carolee Dunn, a fellow teacher, and Carolee’s husband, Timothy, when her students began looking for the right subject.

“Carolee is a colleague whom I really respect . . . and Timothy was our inspiration,” says Lafrossia. “We wanted to keep his memories alive through this.”

The students interviewed Timothy Dunn and translated his memories into pictures, words, drawings and icons that were transferred onto a life-size figure shaped out of foam core.

“His fondest childhood memory was going to a farm outside of Sacramento, so the students drew animals,” Lafrossia explains. “He’s an artist--something that has kept him going--so the students painted a brush and palette. All of the symbols of his life are placed on this shape of a man, but it’s not an actual human figure.”

Lafrossia admits she’s not artistic (“thankfully, my students are”), but she used literature, especially Shakespeare and his reflections on the stages of life, to inspire her students.

“It’s their desire to do it. I’m not pushing them,” Lafrossia says.

The artwork will be displayed Saturday on the Memory Walk route. Participants are encouraged to bring photos of loved ones suffering from the disease to display.

Event organizers hope to raise $155,000 to support Orange County families and fund research for the causes, treatments, prevention and cure of Alzheimer’s.

The Alzheimer’s Assn. offers a help line, support groups, patient therapy, visiting volunteers and counseling to help understand and cope with the illness. The local chapter is one of 200 across the U.S. participating in Memory Walks.

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* Registration for the fourth annual Memory Walk begins at 7:30 a.m. at Western Digital, 8105 Irvine Center Drive, in the Irvine Spectrum. The walk begins at 9 a.m. Walkers may choose a one- or three-mile route. An award presentation and festivities will follow at 10:30 a.m. Information: (714) 283-1111 or visit the Web site at www.alz.org.