In November 2003, Lake Avenue Community Foundation launched the Blair IB Magnet School Adopt-a-School project. We have been invited by the Pasadena Unified School District to get involved in the public school system. The school district recognizes that a partnership like this can positively affect a student. We have recognized the need in the PUSD School district for support and for people to come alongside those who are trying to education and grow with hope, in the future generation.
Our goal is to help provide supplies and volunteers to our adopted school so that we may support Blair IB Magnet School in providing obstacle-free path from being a neighborhood student in Pasadena attending Pasadena Unified Schools to being a college-educated community leader. The project will provide volunteers, classroom resources and leadership assistance for Bible clubs, as well as provide facilities for school meetings, special events and assemblies at Blair IB Magnet School.
We do not help Blair with intention to proselytize, rather, we participate in positively influencing students at Blair because they are a school in need in our community, and we are called by the Kingdom values we live by expressed in the Lord’s prayer “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth (Blair) as it is in heaven.” We want to bring about Kingdom values at Blair, specifically justice, mercy, and love. By providing care and support to a school in our parish is one way we as a church have chosen to put action behind Jesus’ commandment to “love thy neighbor.”
Graduation day hosted by Lake Avenue Church at no cost to PUSD
In an effort to make the adoption project more functional, Lake Avenue Community Foundation and Pasadena Unified School District are working with Partners In Education, a district-wide community outreach service that coordinates business-school partnerships, volunteer activities throughout the district and serves as an information and referral center matching school and parent needs with community resources.
This collaboration resulted in the launching of adoptaschoolpasadena.org in February 2004 which will directly connect volunteers and donors with the needs of teachers, staff and administrators and ultimately allow the Adopt-a-School Program to be implemented at all PUSD schools.
For more information, contact the Blair Volunteer Coordinator Judy Boehr at 626.278.2183 or by e-mail.
