Two Animas High School seniors accompanied Head of School Jake Lauer to Denver on Tuesday to visit the offices of the Daniels Fund and Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Community Partnerships office.
The students were Marley Weaver-Gabel and Tessa Hermesman. Tessa will report about the visits to the student body today, and Marley, editor in chief of the campus newspaper, will have an article about the same in the next edition of the paper.
The reason for the trip was to give Tessa and Marley a foundation to discuss social-issue involvement with their peers.
The Daniels Fund gives grants and scholarships from the $1 billion estate of Bill Daniels, a leader in the cable television industry.
Karla Maraccini, director of the Community Partnerships program, talked about social issues that her office addresses, including health, homelessness, substance abuse, childhood hunger and early childhood literacy.
“The most important message I heard was that people have to help each other,” Tessa said. “We can make a big impact with a little bit of ourselves and a small amount of time.”
Marley said the take-away for her was that by getting involved, people can make things better for others.
“We should do things for personal satisfaction, not personal reward,” Marley said.
daler@durangoherald.com
