KID STUFF BOEING, WORKERS HELP OUT STUDENTS.

Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Christmas came early to the Lancaster Performing Arts Center and Lancaster schoolchildren, thanks to the generosity of Boeing and its employees.

Boeing employees donated 66 backpacks stocked with school supplies for needy pupils at Joshua Elementary School, and the company gave $9,000 to the Lancaster Performing Arts Foundation for its children's programs.

Barbara Greene, community and customer relations administrator, presented the backpacks Oct. 8 to Joshua Principal Mark Gross on Wednesday. On Oct. 10, Jim Nickel, Boeing B-2 site manager, presented a check for $9,000 to Lou Bozigian, president of the Lancaster Performing Arts Foundation.

The backpacks were filled with binders, paper, notebooks, calculators, dictionaries, pens and pencils, glue sticks, crayons, colored markers, rulers and erasers, all donated by Boeing employees.

``They are stuffed because we wanted the children to have lots of supplies,'' Greene said. ``You know, some of those children come to school, and they don't even have pencils or paper. It's really hard to learn if you don't have the basics.''

Besides the backpacks, Boeing donated boxes of school supplies for teachers to give to students.

``Our employees really were generous; I was surprised when I looked in all those (backpacks) to see how many things they put in,'' Greene said.

One employee donated 14 backpacks, and other employees pooled money to buy supplies. There are 1,100 employees at Boeing sites in Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base. This is an annual donation for Boeing employees. Last year, they donated supplies to the Palmdale School District.

The $9,000 grant moves Boeing to the Circle of Honor level of giving to the Lancaster foundation. Its donations to the foundation total $32,500.

``The Boeing Company is always interested in anything dealing with continued education, particularly continued education for our youth,'' said Nickel. ``The Lancaster Performing Arts Center ... in just four short years, they served over 50,000 youths. That's just tremendous. We are very proud to be part of a community involvement program that has that kind of endeavor. Imagine how many hearts, souls, minds, inspiration in youth could be touched by witnessing something like the Missoula Theatre here.''

The foundation's Arts for Youth program reduces ticket prices for special daytime performances attended by students from area schools, allowing more than 15,000 students to attend the theater annually.

The program also provides supplementary instructional materials to teachers in the classroom and helps pay the performance fee for Arts in Youth performers during the season. Another facet of the program is the summer theater program, a three-week intensive play production course for students in grades 7-12.

Peggy Hager, [phone]

peggy.grimm-hager(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Lou Bozigian, left, president of the board of the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, accepts a check for $9,000 from Jim Nickel, B-2 site manager, on behalf of the Boeing Foundation.

Peggy Hager/Staff Photographer