TEEN WORKS TO HELP OTHERS.

Byline: RICK COCA

Staff Writer

CALABASAS - For as long as she can remember -- and even before that -- 17-year-old Amanda Martin has felt compelled to give.

After watching Comic Relief in the early 1990s, Amanda's mom, Debbie, said, the 3-year-old told her she wanted to give all her birthday money to the fund-raising telethon.

"I totally don't remember it," Amanda said of her very first impulse to help the less fortunate.

Now a junior at Viewpoint School in Calabasas, Amanda has raised more than $12,000 in the past three years by designing guitar-pick jewelry and selling it in several Southland boutiques.

And she has donated all the money to charitable pursuits, the majority to help end child slavery and world hunger.

"All my life when I've seen something wrong, I've always felt the need to do something about it," Amanda said.

Her devotion to those in need has drawn some attention. Amanda was one of 25 high school juniors worldwide chosen to attend a global leadership conference designed for "leaders of tomorrow."

As a 2007 Tomorrow25 honoree, Amanda will be feted this month at Bentley College in Massachusetts. She and the other teens will be featured in an ad in Time magazine, which is supporting a series of forums at the college on business ethics, leadership and social responsibility.

An accomplished actress, singer and swimmer at Viewpoint School, a K-12 independent college-preparatory school, Amanda is also involved in a student leadership effort to get more of her peers to volunteer.

"I don't know how she has enough time in the day to do everything. It's impressive," said Stephanie James, assistant director of college counseling at Viewpoint.

James said the school's selection of Amanda for the Bentley College honor was a no-brainer.

"She's an entrepreneur. She's a scholar. She's a volunteer, a talented musician, actress and a strong athlete," James said. "She's really involved in so many aspects of our community. She has a hand in everything."

James, a former college counselor, said Amanda's pursuits are not designed to stuff her college applications with impressive achievements.

"She has internal motivation," James said. "Everything she does is so genuine. She's so unique because she just does everything because she loves it."

Amanda's love of designing jewelry made out of guitar picks began in the eighth grade after she started taking guitar lessons. She became enamored by all the variations and colors of the picks and started designing her own jewelry.

Soon after, she wore some of the jewelry into Popular, a Calabasas boutique, and was asked whether she wanted to sell some of her creations at the store.

"It sells really fast," said Jillian Rydell, owner of Pinnacle in Malibu, which also carries the jewelry. "We're on the phone with her every other week asking her to send more."

Jean Shack in Woodland Hills also carries the jewelry by Amanda, whose foray into the jewelry business coincided with a trip to the Museum of Tolerance, where she saw some sobering exhibits.

"I saw all these horrible things that were still going on in the world like child slavery and millions of people starving," she recalled of the museum visit. "I thought: I have to do something about this."

And her efforts to "change the world" aren't limited to faraway places. Amanda organized a tobacco-awareness program last week at her school, culminating with an appearance by Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco king R.J. Reynolds and a vocal critic of tobacco use.

"The (anti-tobacco) week came about because I saw some of my peers smoking and I thought: This is not good," Amanda said.

She said she's looking forward to traveling to Massachusetts for the leadership conference and having the opportunity to meet young people from other countries.

"I'm really excited about it," she said. "I get to meet other people like me who want to change the world."

But even for someone as adept at multitasking as Amanda, there truly are just so many hours in a day.

"I haven't had much time to play guitar since this has all been going on," she said.

rick.coca(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Amanda Martin, 17, shows some of the guitar-pick jewelry that she creates and sells, donating her profits to charities.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer