Heritage High honored at MLK breakfast

Story and photo by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)

For building a secondary school in a war-torn village of Africa, Heritage High School was honored with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award at the City of Littleton's 12th Annual MLK breakfast, Jan. 18.

Students at the school started raising money for community service projects in 2005. The first group of students raised $300 for the Make-a-Wish Foundation during a week or activities in April. The next year, students donated nearly $10,000 to send a girl with Leukemia to Disneyland. In 2007, students generated $14,000 for a variety of services in an African village – bikes and a concrete floor for a bakery, microloans for entrepreneurs, medical supplies for amputees, scholarships to school, food, clothes and sports equipment.

The last two years during Make a Difference (MAD) Week, students poured in nearly $45,000 to help build a secondary school in Kabala, Sierra Leone.

“Dr. King inspired all of us to try to go out and make a difference,” said Heritage Principal Ken Moritz. “This is a story of 1,600 Littleton teenagers, how they collectively over three years of committed work and effort built a school in a village where there was no school. Education is probably the most powerful tool we can give anyone in any society in any part of the world.”

Heritage Kabala was completed in August 2009 and opened in November. This April, Heritage students are raising money to build a similar school in India for the Dalit, members of the “untouchables” caste. For information or to donate, contact Tony Winger, twinger@lps.k12.co.us or 303-347-7600.

A history of Heritage in Sierra Leone and its MAD Week and a blog from Sierra Leone is also on Heritage's Web site.

About Me

My name is Joshua Cole.

I'm a community newspaper reporter in the south-Denver-metro area, with Cherry Creek Schools (CCSD), Littleton Public Schools (LPS) and Denver Public Schools (the southwest area) in my two newspapers' coverage area.

I'm also a former teacher. I was a substitute teacher, and I taught middle school English before teaching took its toll on me. But I still love learning about education and talking with educators. Although I cover everything for the two newspapers -- sports, city council, other features -- my favorite thing that I get to write about is education-based.

One thing that my newspaper professors and teachers always tried to pound in our heads was to write at a level so that normal people can understand something. I take that approach with education. Most of my articles are about the students, the classrooms and the schools -- where the parents and kids are every day -- and not so much about the administrations or the boards of education. And thus, the Denver "Classroom Reporter."

On this blog, I'll post many of the articles I write or comment about things I see, hear or read.

My e-mail, and I'm on Twitter, @classroomreport.

I am hopeful that you may enjoy what you read and learn from it.

Our newspapers (they are NOT online):
The Denver Herald-Dispatch
The paper has been serving the southwest Denver community every Thursday since 1926 -- we're the only ones that give a damn about southwest Denver, our slogan used to say. The paper covers the city of Denver proper, from West Sixth Avenue to the southern border, and from West Santa Fe Drive to the western border. The traditional public high schools include John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and Denver West, with charter schools KIPP Collegiate High School and Southwest Early College, and private schools J.K. Mullen and Denver Lutheran. We also are home to the Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy K-8 and the first KIPP middle school (Sunshine Peak Academy) and first two West Denver Prep middle school campuses.
For info, call 303-936-7778

The Villager
Since 1982, Gerri and Bob Sweeney have been informing the south suburban area of news and events. The paper started off just for the cities of Greenwood Village and Cherry Hills Village but has since expanded to cover Arapahoe County and the cities of Centennial and Littleton. We cover all of the Cherry Creek School District, which is one of the best and largest districts in the state, as well as Littleton Schools, which are also well-respected in the metro area.
For info, call 303-773-8313