Teen's block party to help homeless people - again
She did it in 1999. Now 15-year-old Gabby Thompson is again holding a party to help needy people.
By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published June 13, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - A precocious high-school student wants your old socks and underwear, ratty towels, and anything else you can spare for homeless men and women. Gabrielle Thompson, 15, has organized a block party and donation drive for ASAP, a homeless shelter.
On Saturday, from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 or 8, she hopes the 600 block of 61st Avenue S will bustle with the unloading of clothing and supplies, music and socializing.
It's not her first time organizing such an event. Gabby, as everyone knows her, hosted a similar block party in 1999 for ASAP, when she was 10, after a period of time spent persuading her mother, Merle Thompson.
"My mom was sort of iffy about it," Gabby recalled. "I sort of had to beg her."
Gabby has been charting her own course for a while now. After skipping the first grade, she scarfed up various academic awards at Bay Point Middle School and is now an honor roll student in St. Petersburg High School's International Baccalaureate program, where she will be a junior in the fall.
Her career choices have narrowed since 1999, when she told a reporter she wanted to become a talk show host, hair stylist and singer. These days it's a forensic pathologist.
In recent years she has taken up soccer, swimming, karate, ballet, and joined the tennis team and the drama club. "I just try anything I can," she said.
Homeless people need socks, toiletries and clothing, said Karen Butler, director of the ASAP shelter at 423 11th Ave. S. Butler said that other young people have donated recently to ASAP, including $1,100 raised by the Junior Vincentians of St. Raphael's Catholic School.
A block party offers the added benefit of helping neighbors get more acquainted, said Gabby, who heads to Spain in July for a month of study. "I guess nothing bad can come of it," she said. "Everyone gets something."
