by TImothy Rutt
Elizabeth Claire Lambert may be one her way to being one of those movers and shakers.
The 17-year-old Ambassador Scout was looking for project for her Gold Award, to reach the highest level in Girl Scouting. Her mother, Eliot Middle School math teacher Dr. Jane Lambert, steered her in the right direction: a large number of Eliot students live in group homes, or come from families struggling with poverty or abuse, or have other issues, and counseling is a constant need. Unfortunately, counseling sessions had to take place in a quiet corner of the library, without any sense of privacy for the child. What the school really needed was a designated private room for counseling.
Elizabeth met with Principal Lorena Martinez, who approved the project and pointed her to a vacant, unused room on campus.
"It was completely empty," Elizabeth said. "No furniture, and it hadn't been painted in 30 years."
Elizabeth estimated that it would take somewhere between $2,500-$4,000 to rehab it into a counseling room. She said she felt the project was "ambitious enough, but not overly so."
And then she started making phone calls and knocking on doors.
Her father Hank Lambert said that he told her that the hardest part would be getting people and businesses to donate money and materials. But, he said, she's proven him wrong.
The project is now expected to be completed by her Feb. 28, 2013 deadline and -- at least as of last week -- she hadn't yet spent a dime on it. Everything to date has been donated.
Among the donations: Vista Paint, which donated $125 of paint for the room; Partnership Painting, which donated a three-man crew to paint the room; Altadena Hardware, which donated blinds; and labor and materials donated by volunteers, parents, Girl Scouts, the Eliot PTA, Ikea, Scholastic Books, Crest Furniture of Burbank, and many others. About $700 of books and games have been donated to the room.
Not that she's not against collecting money, too: her project received a $300 grant from the Altadena Rotary Club last week, and she's taking donations through a website she's set up.
"I'm accumulating funds, and will use them for a lot of things -- I can do more now than I anticipated," she said.
UPDATE: Elizabeth's father Hank Lambert emails that there were two other significant donations: First United Methodist Church's men's group gave $200; and Learning Works donated $500.