Violence Prevention with Jasmine and Angelina

Angelina Rivas, Class of 2022

Violence makes headlines.  Violence prevention doesn't usually reach the front page or the television screen.  

Let's take a moment to turn away from the horror of an 18-year-old murdering ten innocent people in a supermarket because he was a hate-filled racist.

Instead, let's remember the 3.7 million students who are graduating from high school this year in the USA.  They are hard-working and ambitious.  Most of them sat in classrooms and played sports with students of many races and nationalities.

Many of them marched in bands or participated in clubs made up of Black, Asian, Latinx, White, and Indigenous students.  They worked together to do community service.  About 60% of these graduates have earned college admittance and plan to start another 4-5 years of academic work this coming fall.

Today I want to honor two hard-working students who are not only graduating from high school but working to prevent violence.

Jasmine Lopez and Angelina Rivas were among the 200 or more seniors honored last night in a Scholarship and Honors Program for outstanding students graduating from Santa Monica High School.  

They were also chosen for this year's Kathy McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention. 

Jasmine commuted into Santa Monica from a neighborhood that used to be plagued with drugs, gangs, and violence.  

"The only thing that made me feel safer were the bars on all our windows," she wrote in her application essay.

But then her family started a local Neighborhood Watch, got the Next Door app, and began hosting a monthly meeting in their house.  They targeted a corner shop that appeared to be selling drugs.

Anne Linstatter with Jasmine Lopez

"We called the police so much and put that corner shop on their radar," Jasmine recalls.  "Sure enough, it was a human trafficking shop that laundered money as well as a warehouse for illegal drugs." 

After a SWAT raid, the owner was arrested, the shop was sold, and the neighborhood became calm and safe.

At Santa Monica High School, Jasmine became active in student government, cheerleading, and the Latinx Leaders Club (president during her senior year).

When she was presented with an award for leadership in student government, another student leader described her as "not afraid to speak her opinion."  

She plans to attend Mount St. Mary's University in west Los Angeles, majoring in business. 

Angelina Rivas is the other winner of this year's scholarship for violence prevention.  She lives in the Pico neighborhood of Santa Monica.  Both she and Jasmine held part-time jobs during three of their four years of high school.  

Angelina received the McTaggart scholarship because of her work to combat domestic abuse and teen dating violence.  She has been a peer leader for Margaret's Place, an intervention program to provide mental health services for students who have been impacted by violence in their home, school, or community. 

She helped coordinate campus organizations on teen violence, sexual assault awareness, and mental health awareness, making flyers, announcements, and wristbands.

Angelina will be attending Stanford University, and she wants to work for the Human Rights Council of the UN. 

Have you found ways to counteract the violence we hear about so often in the news?

Perhaps you are focusing on gun control or better understanding among people of various races, but don't forget the graduates bravely moving on to build the future.

One small way to help them is to contribute to the Katherine McTaggart Scholarship for Violence Prevention at Santa Monica High School. 

Kathy

Dr. Antonio Shelton, Principal of SMHS,
with college counselor Julie Honda
and Samohi Alumni donor
Evelyn Lauchenauer

 was a licensed therapist who worked with at-risk teens and their families for 16 years as a school-community partnership coordinator in the Santa Monica-Malibu School District.  She died in 2012. 

Send your check to:

Santa Monica Education Foundation 

c/o Samohi Scholarships

1645 - 16th Street 

Santa Monica CA 90404.  

Make it payable to Samohi Scholarship Fund, specifying McTaggart Violence Prevention for 2023 seniors.

Thank you for joining with Jasmine and Angelina to promote awareness of mental health and nonviolent solutions to problems.

For more photos, see https://photos.app.goo.gl/w4aGMjQNg7dSvshJ6