PITA event plays up role of education’s importance

A young boy doesn’t usually don a grandmother outfit
complete with a high-pitched voice to tell a story.

But at the Parental Involvement Through the Arts program, one
child did exactly that to show his peers and their parents that
education is important.

Elementary and middle school students from all over Los Angeles,
including Chinatown and Watts, were bused to UCLA on Saturday for
the PITA event, which had nearly 200 children in attendance.

Students put on skits covering issues important to children,
such as eating vegetables and brushing their teeth. Many skits also
concerned higher education and achieving dreams.

After the performances, students were ushered into different
areas to do various art activities, and parents participated in
workshops.

The event was designed to tie arts with education in order to
show how art is crucial for a complete education.

The program is put on by the Community Service Commission, a
student-run program, which consists of 20 community service
projects comprised of over 1,500 undergraduate students.

Nine of these projects were involved in PITA this year, an
increase from the four that participated last year.

Program Director Justin Schreiber said he hopes all 20 CSC
projects will participate in the future. Non-CSC projects are also
invited to participate.

Many students were looking forward to the event.

Kevin Martinez and Calvin Kuang, both eight years old, were
excited about coming to UCLA.

“When they told us about PITA, I wanted to see everyone
sing,” Martinez said.

Both are students at Castellar Elementary School, located in
Chinatown, and are part of Asian American Tutorial Project.

Tutorial participants sang for this year’s event.
AATP’s goal is to provide students in Chinatown with the
skills and guidance necessary to gain access to higher
education.

“We do a lot of stuff like math, spelling and reading
“¦ it’s fun,” Kuang said.

Tutors for the program often form unique bonds with their
protégés.

“They hang out with them and sometimes visit their house
if they can’t make it to a particular meeting. It’s
kind of like mentoring,” said first-year business and
economics student Laura Lin.

Lin decided to tutor because she wanted to help students from
Chinatown learn.

“Most of their parents are immigrants, and they
don’t know English well,” Lin said.

After visiting UCLA, students became eager about going to
college.

“I want to go to college so I can be somebody,” said
12-year-old Shawn Turner, a student at Markham Middle School in
Watts.

Turner hopes to be a lawyer but doesn’t know what college
he wants to attend yet.

PITA was started 10 years ago by the CSC to give community
service projects within the commission a chance to bring their
recipients to the UCLA campus.

Future events promise to be bigger and better.

“We are trying to have more activities, more workshops for
parents, more skits and more kids,” Schreiber said.

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