Serving without fail

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- They each consistently take time out of their busy

teenage lives to give back to the community.

Laurel Laidlaw, a student at Ensign Intermediate School, shows up at

the Costa Mesa-based poverty relief organization Share Our Selves every

other Wednesday after school to lend a hand.

“She just came in on her own,” volunteer coordinator Robin Sinclair

said. “She works with senior citizens, she gets along with all ages,

interacts with clients really the way we are meant to here -- in the most

nonjudgmental way.”

Every Friday afternoon, Newport Harbor High School junior Katie Brown

heads to Whittier Elementary School, where she tutors students who are

struggling with math.

Neither teens are there because they have to be, but simply because

they want to be.

For these selfless acts, the two Newport Beach girls were honored this

week with the Costa Mesa Mayor’s Outstanding Youth Award.

The award recognizes youngsters in the community who have performed an

outstanding act, service or good deed.

Both volunteers have impressed their respective program directors with

their dedicated and hard work.

“I thought even after the holiday that would be it, I wouldn’t see her

again, but she shows up without fail every other Wednesday,” Sinclair

said. “She’s a quiet girl, but she’s just this leader -- a great role

model for other kids who come in. A lot of kids come in because they have

to. She comes in just purely because she wants to.”

Katie, 16, is a part of the Volunteer Internship Program at the high

school.

Each year students apply to the program and 50 are selected, she said.

“What I do is math tutoring, which reinforces the lessons they learn

in school,” she said. “We do work sheets, math games, things they learned

in school.”

She volunteered during the last school year at Orange Coast College’s

preschool. While she said she enjoyed that, she thinks she may have found

a perfect fit for herself at Whittier.

“I liked working with the kids at the OCC preschool, but I find that I

do better in a school-type setting, a teaching environment,” she said. “I

like the third-graders. It’s really fulfilling, and the kids seem to get

a lot out of it. They are really fun and really sweet.”