One of SAMPLE's annual hands-on opportunities to get involved with the community is the Graffiti Project. Both the high-school age counselors and their students paint over graffiti in a local area. Within an hour or so, an alley that used to be covered up with spray paint and tagging is now white, clean, spic-and-span. Who says that we can't make a difference?This photograph was taken after SAMPLE '96's Graffiti Project. Behind the row of kids and counselors stands a once-graffiti-ridden alley, freshly repainted by a group all under the age of 20.
A counselor critiques a fellow counselor's work as the two work together to paint over some ugly spray paint.
Sofia Martos (Counselor '95, Administrative Assistant '95) observes and gives tips to her student on the most effective technique to hold the paintbrush.
As a step to learning how to aid the homeless, SAMPLE counselors guide their students through the Homeless Lunch Project. Here a proud SAMPLE student displays his tasty work of art.
One of SAMPLE's three goals (the first two being to improve language and communication skills and to educate children in ways to take social action) is to increase awareness of diversity and of other cultures. Here you can see Sandy Liu (Counselor '94 and '95, Administrative Assistant '95, and Director of Communications '96), at work at this goal, as she lights a candle demonstrating the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa.
Another way that SAMPLE reaches to increase awareness of other cultures is very pleasing to the palate--every Friday, the Cultural research team dishes out tasty and tantalizing tidbits of main and side dishes as well as desserts and beverages from the African-American, Asian-American, Arab-American, Hispanic-American, and Native American cultures. Here you see two counselors and their students eagerly awaiting their SAMPLEs of a cultural drink.
Here, a SAMPLE student sings a cultural song at the SAMPLE Finale presentation.