New Service Program Gets Royal Sendoff in L.A. Unified

When rumors began flying this week about a celebrity guest coming to Westchester High School, possibly Vice President Al Gore, no one guessed the truth.

The mystery was solved Wednesday when students learned that Prince Philip of Great Britain, the Duke of Edinburgh, was on campus to meet them and to help launch the Congressional Award Program in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Modeled after Prince Philip’s own Duke of Edinburgh Award, the program awards gold, silver and bronze medals to youths 14 to 23 years old for initiative, achievement and service.

As hundreds of students formed a line to meet the British royal, some wondered what a prince looked like.

“He’ll probably be a little old man in a suit,” said 18-year-old Teresa Romero.

But what the prince looked like was less important than why he was there.

Prince Philip said he began the awards program in Great Britain in 1956 because, “There was a great emphasis on academic learning, but extracurriculars were being neglected. It was to help students become well-rounded.”

Since the U.S. Congress created the program, more than 7,000 awards have been given out.

To receive them, young participants work with mentors to set individual goals in four program areas: public service, personal development, physical fitness and travel. Once they complete the requirements in each area, Congress awards the honor.

Westchester High is the first Los Angeles district school to embrace the program, recruiting mentors from Loyola Marymount University and Hughes Space and Communication. District officials said they will send materials to other district schools over the next week on how to participate in the program.

“It’s about accomplishment and setting standards,” Tim Seal of La Puente, a 1984 Congressional Gold Medalist, said of the program. “As you better yourself, you better others.”

Seal said he got involved in the program shortly after high school and sought a way to challenge himself and give something back. His goal: to earn a gold medal.

For the top honor, a youth must give 400 hours to volunteer community service and 200 hours each to personal development and physical fitness and must undertake an ambitious expedition or exploration project.

It was no easy task, but by the time Seal finished volunteering with the Special Olympics and working with children afflicted with cerebral palsy, he had given 900 hours of service, 1,800 of personal development and 1,500 of personal fitness.

Congressional silver medalist Amber Wingfield’s friends didn’t understand why she was spending hundreds of hours mentoring kids at the Delhaven Community Center in La Puente. “You’re not being paid,” the 19-year old recalled them saying. “But it meant a lot to me. . . . You can’t put a price tag on helping.”