MERE CHILD'S PLAY CENTER CELEBRATES HARVEST FEST.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

NORTHRIDGE - Teacher Jerry kept insisting Saturday that he was the Harvest King, but Racquel McAndrew, 4, Northridge, wasn't convinced.

True, he did have an orange fleece cape with a green leaf pattern and a leaf crown, but Racquel insisted, ``You don't look like a king, with all those leaves in your hair.''

``I'm sorry I don't fit your idea of what a king looks like,'' an amused Teacher Jerry, also known as Jerry Harper, 50, Granada Hills, told her.

``I played Dionysus in a play once,'' he added, hopefully. But Racquel was more interested in jumping in a pit of autumn leaves at the Harvest Festival at California State University, Northridge's Child and Family Studies Center.

Barbara Rigney-Hill, director of the center, said the program, which has been running since 1965, provides preschool and kindergarten classes for the children of about 100 families from the university and the community at large. It also serves as a training program for CSUN's child development students.

Harper is one of those students, a child development major at CSUN who will graduate in May. He said he chose teaching as a ``third career'' after working as a lighting director for commercials and television.

He started volunteering five years ago at his daughter's school on days when he wasn't working. Eventually, it got to the point that he resented it when paying jobs took him away from the kids, he said.

``I can go all day, and my problems do not exist until I leave the school,'' Harper said, smiling beatifically.

The festival was created about three years ago as a way to raise a little money for the program and also to give toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners an afternoon of fun activities they could do on their own, Hill said.

At one table, the children took minibagels, smeared peanut butter on them, and then rolled them in bird seed to create bird feeders they could hang on a tree at home. There were cookies to decorate with icing and sprinkles, and pumpkins to decorate with glued-on beans and paint.

Even the tiniest toddlers could dip their hands into a bowl filled with cloth leaves and find the plastic insects hidden at the bottom.

Emily Glennon, 4, of Northridge, was decorating a T-shirt with paint.

``This is a little monster, but he's not scary,'' she said, pointing to a shape outlined in glittery paint just above a red leaf-print.

``I'm a kitty-cat,'' she said, pointing to the painted-on whiskers and nose on her face. ``And that's a crown on top.''

Fairy-cat-princesses and other elaborate creations were the face-painting requests of the day, said Helane Stein, 38, of Agoura, who was volunteering at the festival.

``I had one green sparkle-monster request, so I had to make up a green sparkle-monster because I've never seen one before,'' Stein said.

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Photo:

Preschoolers and kindergartners romp in a leaf pit at the Cal State Northridge Child and Family Studies Center's Harvest Festival, which was held Saturday.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer