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Week in Review
By Times staff WHARTON TEENS THANK FIREFIGHTERS -- Angel Hines knows it takes more than sweet potato casserole, blueberry cobbler and banana pudding to make Thanksgiving complete. She made each of those dishes Wednesday, then added an extra ingredient that many folks during the holiday rush forget: generosity. The food she whipped up wasn't for her. It was for local firefighters on duty Thursday. "I feel sorry for them, that they have to work on Thanksgiving," said Angel, 18. "Now they'll actually get to eat Thanksgiving dinner instead of working." They still had to work. But when Angel, a senior at Wharton High School, and about 50 classmates brought food to three local fire stations, it made the shift easier to bear. This marks the fourth year that students at Wharton have brought a holiday meal to firefighters as part of a community service project. It started with Tampa Fire Station 20 near Tampa Palms. This year, Station 21 off Cross Creek Boulevard and Hillsborough Fire Station 14, in the university area, also will receive home cooking. "It just makes us feel like we're appreciated," said Tampa Fire Capt. Ron Pinner, a 20-year veteran now at Tampa Station 21. "It makes us feel like we want to do a better job. It's really a blessing." STUDENTS URGED TO SPEAK OUT FOR SAFETY -- For this year's school safety summit, organizers decided to once again go to the experts: the students who spend a large part of their lives in the classrooms and hallways. On Tuesday, about 120 students from middle and high schools throughout the county gathered for the fourth Hear Our Students Talk summit. They spent about two hours setting the agenda on school safety and asking hard questions of the adults responsible for ensuring it. "You have a voice," said moderator LaShante Keys, program specialist for the St. Petersburg-based National Conference for Community and Justice. "Today you have the opportunity to use that voice." Bullying, gang activity, sexual harassment, theft, drugs, vandalism, bomb threats and racism were the touchstone issues on which the students focused. School district officials, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and state legislators fielded those concerns with an eye toward remedying them. Corey Frauenfender, an eighth-grader from Sligh Middle School, was worried about gang members in his school. "Why can't we just get rid of them?" he asked. "We watch videos about gangs, but they're like from 1988. Why couldn't we make some new movies?" "The No. 1 weapon against gangs is to communicate with the (school resource officer) deputy at your school," said Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Anselmo Torres Jr. , a school resource officer supervisor. That response was a common theme among the decisionmakers on the stage as they urged students to act as informers. "Enforcement has to come from you," said Tampa Police Department Cpl. O.P. Harris, who oversees school resource officers in the city. "We need your help. That's the bottom line." David Friedberg, the school district's chief of security, said 320 students were arrested in the past year as a result of calls to the county's CrimeStoppers tip line. "The single best strategy to reduce violence, crime and criminal activity in our schools today is communication from you to us," Friedberg told the students. "It's incredible how much power and control you have."
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From the Times |
