Apr 21, 2007

Fourth-graders tackle water woes

By Mark Abramson / Daily News Staff Writer

A class of Portola Elementary School fourth-graders hopes to drown out the world's water woes with a book they wrote, and now they are trying to raise money for the cause by selling bottled water.

The students in Julie Calleja's class spent a month writing the children's book, "Water for Life." It talks about various problems, such as the diseases and death caused by poor drinking water and why children in developing countries labor for hours each day hauling water. The book also talks about inventor Trevor Field's Play Pump, a piece of playground equipment on which children spin around and pump water from a ground well to a storage tank.

About 2 million children worldwide die each year because of water-related problems, Calleja said.

"We learned that one class can make a difference," said Liam Kern, 9.

Calleja's students celebrated their accomplishment by reading the book to San Bruno Park School District Superintendent David Hutt on Friday, before they gave him a copy of the 23-page work. They will find out in late May whether they won a contest to have the book published by Scholastic, a children's book publisher.

The contest's rules prevent the book from being published if the children do not win, and Crestmont Publishing has already asked them to write another book, Calleja said.

Hutt commended the students for taking their idea and making it into "something special."

"It was really fun," said Veronica Bianculli, 10. "It was about helping people have fresh drinking water."

The students said they are looking forward to the next step, which is creating a logo for their Change the World bottled water and helping their teacher write letters to retailers like Target, Costco and others to market it. The profits would go toward buying the $14,000 Play Pumps for wherever they are needed.

Calleja's class has also e-mailed Oprah Winfrey to get more publicity for their effort.

Hollywood producer Vince Gerardis has committed to investing in Change the World Water, Calleja said. The students are also working with RandomKid, a nonprofit started by 12-year-old Talia Leman after she raised millions of dollars for Hurricane Katrina relief, to get more classes involved nationwide.