Halloween Website

When Grade 7 students at Laval Junior High School first wrote to children in Uganda they asked them about Halloween and Christmas.

The friendly letters from Ugandan students posted on a bulletin board at the Chomedey school hint at the hardships children face in the east African country.

“I do not have my father because he died of AIDS,” wrote one 13-year-old.

In fact, many children at the Future Leaders School in the capital city of Kampala have been orphaned because of AIDS.

“The second letters that our students sent to them – and the third ones and the fourth ones – were much more compassionate,” said Angela Kallianiotis, who teaches geography, history, and ethics and religious culture.

All 112 of her Grade 7 students are involved in the classroom project they’ve called “Learners Without Borders.” Its aim is to connect with students far away.

The Laval students first raised money so that children in the Ugandan school’s elementary level could have their first Christmas party.

Now Laval Junior has embarked on a much more ambitious venture with the Ugandan school – an entrepreneurial jewellery-making project.

The Laval students raised $650 through events like popcorn sales. The money was used to hire two teachers in Uganda to train 40 unemployed women and students at the school to make necklaces and bracelets from magazine paper. The Laval school also sent $300 to cover the shipping costs. The 800 necklaces and 100 bracelets arrived late last month. The Laval students will start selling them Friday with most priced at $5 to $10.

“I’m not only making someone else happy, but I’m making myself happy by changing someone else’s world, life,” said M-E Charissakis, 13.

Samira Abedi, 13, has corresponded with a boy in Grade 3 who attends the Ugandan school. “I always knew about poverty in Africa,” Samira said. “But to hear it from a child it was a wake-up call.”

Student interest in the project extends to Uganda. “The children are very excited about this project,” Hosea Mulinde, an ordained pastor who helps run the school, said in a telephone interview. Future Leaders Schools is the education division of Global Community Transformation, a Christian non-governmental organization.

The project has taken on bigger proportions than Kallianiotis expected. She initially thought there might be 100 pieces of jewellery. “I was very nervous because, obviously, I didn’t know exactly how they would look.” But she is pleased with what arrived, calling the items “gorgeous.”

A new shipment is initially expected to arrive every month. Kallianiotis acknowledged the challenge will be figuring out how to sell all of it.

A percentage of the money from the sales will go to the Ugandan women who made some of the jewellery. The rest will go to the school, which hopes to buy a piece of land to grow food for the children, most of whom live on site.

Future Leaders School also wants to create a “music section” with instruments and costumes, and establish a medical clinic at the school.

“They have helped us so much. They have raised hope within our school and the community,” Mulinde said of the Laval students’ efforts. “It is something that has brought a sense of great transformation in our school because it has created hope and also kind of a sense that someone there is taking care of someone.”

bbranswell@thegazette.canwest.com

For more information, visit: www.learnerswithoutborder.com

Several representatives of the Anoka Halloween festival attended the city of Winnipeg’s 41-year-old Festival du Voyageur last month.

Each year, the Winnipeg celebration invites people from a limited number of other long-established festivals.

This year, in addition to Anoka Halloween, the St. Paul Winter Carnival, the Minneapolis Aquatennial, Willmar Fests and the La Crescent Applefest were Minnesota celebrations that were represented at the Festival du Voyageur.

Roger Kruse, president of Anoka Halloween, said the organization welcomed the chance to spread the word about the festival, which will mark its 90th anniversary this October.

In addition to Kruse, others attending from Anoka Halloween included his wife, Joni Kruse, chairwoman of the Orange Tie Ball, and board members Karen George and Sharolyn Carlson.

More information on Anoka Halloween is available at www.anokahalloween.com .

STAFF REPORT

And Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee — who used to share spots near Young on the bench, hoping for more playing time — have suddenly moved into prominent roles as starters. Young, however, continues to sit and ponder his place with the team as the Wizards prepare to host the Houston Rockets on Tuesday.

Coach Flip Saunders has praised Blatche and McGee for their “serious attitude,” which was evident for most of the Wizards’ 86-83 loss to the Boston Celtics on Sunday. The duo combined for 36 points, 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots.

Young, on the other hand, has been unable to discover a role on the new-look Wizards. Even with the roster turnover, Josh Howard’s season-ending knee surgery and the team being limited offensively, Young is slowly drifting into irrelevance as Saunders goes more with new arrival Quinton Ross as the first guard off the bench.

“He’s struggled,” Saunders said. “He’s had opportunities. He hasn’t had anything that’s clicked.”

Saunders has criticized Young for failing to influence games in ways that go beyond scoring. In his only notable performance since the all-star break, Young scored 12 points and played stellar defense against Denver point guard Chauncey Billups in the fourth quarter of the Wizards’ surprising 107-97 win over the Nuggets on Feb. 19.

But in the other nine games, Young is averaging just 3.2 points and shooting 24 percent (10 of 41). He is averaging just 11.8 minutes since the all-star break, and been limited to three points or fewer six times.

“I’m thinking out there, trying to do the right thing and I ain’t playing right,” said Young, who was averaging 7.7 points and shooting 40.5 percent in 17.6 minutes per game before the all-star break. “It’s been hard for me out there. My teammates are saying to me, ‘You just got to play your game.’ And that’s what I’m going to start doing from now on. Start playing like Nick. This ain’t working, apparently.”

Young has tried several different approaches this season, hoping that his next move could be the one to spark a turnaround.

He’s changed shoes, opting for several different color schemes and numbers with special meaning stitched along the side. And he’s repeatedly changed hairstyles, going with a Mohawk, a mini-Afro, having his hometown “L.A.” carved into the back of his head, to now, a closely shaved cut with a patch of hair on top. But the inconsistent looks have merely coincided with his erratic play in his third season.

Before the season, Young spoke of making a name for himself in the NBA, and possibly earning the starting shooting guard job. He spent the summer working out with Saunders and Sam Cassell, learning the nuances of the new system and how to score with limited extra dribbling. He has started 13 games, but he is putting up career lows in nearly every statistical category, including scoring (seven points) and field goal percentage (38.9 percent).

“It’s hard,” Young said. “We had such high hopes coming in and see how it’s going, to see teammates leaving, losing games, don’t know when you’re playing, it’s been a lot going on with me. I’m trying to stay in there, hang in there and keep going.”

As her husband’s billion-dollar fraud scheme was imploding last Halloween, Kim Rothstein went shopping for more shoes at Nordstrom.

She liked expensive shoes. And Louis Vuitton handbags. Gucci accessories. Evening dresses by Zola Keller. Shirts, sweaters and jeans from Cache Luxe. She could burn through thousands of dollars on a shopping outing, or drop nearly $5,000 buying from a chic Los Angeles boutique online.

“This happened to be a platform shoe that I liked and they had it in my size, which I can’t get very often. I would just buy several at one time so that I would just have them,” she said in sworn testimony two weeks ago, as lawyers grilled her about her spending habits and the torrents of Ponzi cash that powered her American Express account.

The 150-page deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sun Sentinel, provides Kim Rothstein’s version of life during her husband’s swindle, as it grew into the largest in South Florida history and then collapsed last fall. While she acknowledges her spendthrift ways in the document, it leaves many questions unanswered — she claims to have been in the dark about her husband’s secretive dealings and his relations with his biggest investors.

Under oath, Kim Rothstein said she spent so much, collected so much jewelry, brought home so many shopping bags that she can’t remember it all — it’s now a blur.

But her life of luxury was lonely, hectic even, with all the social events, charity balls and public-appearance demands. She had her hands full just serving as one of her husband’s many handlers — he was frenetic, unmanageable, a whirlwind.

Scott Rothstein, 47, pleaded guilty in January to five counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud and faces up to 100 years in prison when he is sentenced May 6. There is a sweeping federal investigation under way that is expected to ensnare co-conspirators.

Kim Rothstein spent about three hours on Feb. 18 in a Fort Lauderdale conference room with an array of lawyers who are dissecting her husband’s fraudulent scheme to sell non-existent legal settlements to investors. The attorneys are hunting for any assets they can claw back to repay Scott Rothstein’s cheated investors.

She answered questions about her lifestyle, her finances, the many homes the couple owned, what she knew about her husband’s business ventures, the enormous political contributions made in her name and her prolific shoe-buying. She said she had no inkling her husband was running a massive scam.

Kim Rothstein repeatedly referred to Scott Rothstein as “him” or “he,” and to clarify, the attorneys had to ask several times if she meant her husband.

The lawyers were armed with her American Express charge card records dating to 2005, which they used to refresh her memory about her purchasing sprees that totaled nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The questioning began with some basics: She met Scott Rothstein at a barbecue in 2003 and started dating him two years later, she said. The couple married on Jan. 26, 2008, in a lavish weekend-long affair attended by Gov. Charlie Crist at the Versace mansion on South Beach.

Kim Rothstein, who turns 36 next month, said her education consisted of “almost an associate’s degree from Broward Community College.” She tended bar at Blue Martini, an upscale watering hole at The Galleria, and dabbled in real estate sales, but the sales were not highly lucrative for her. She said her personal savings, which she said she is now using to pay her living expenses, amounted to about $100,000 last fall.

The questioning about her spending began with Zola Keller, a high-end clothier on Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale. “She does custom dresses, gowns, gala clothing, that sort of thing,” Kim Rothstein said, adding she shopped there “per his [her husband's] instructions.” She spent $42,000 at the shop over the years, according to the American Express records cited by the attorneys.

The lawyers asked about her purchases at Shop 603, another Las Olas retailer, where she spent more than $12,000 on gifts for family and friends. Next up were the Louis Vuitton purchases at Neiman Marcus: $23,000 worth of handbags.

“I just went in there really when I was on a mission for gifts, that sort of thing,” Kim Rothstein said. “Some of them were for me, personally.”

As the questioning about the luxury leather goods went on, Scott Rothstein’s criminal defense attorney, Marc Nurik, piped up: “All the women are salivating at this table,” the transcript of the deposition relates.

Then she was asked about $21,000 in shoe purchases over the years, and the trip to Nordstrom on Halloween last year. Her husband had mysteriously fled to Morocco that week as investors clamored for their missing money, and she consoled herself with some new shoes.

The week before, the five-foot blonde spent $4,700 online buying footwear from XTC on Melrose, a Los Angeles store that advertises that its clients include Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears.

“I have very small feet; I have to special order,” Kim Rothstein explained.

Apparently astonished at the volume of the purchases, Theresa Van Vliet, the former federal prosecutor asking the questions, remarked, “I like shoes — that’s a lot of shoes.”

Make way! Thousands of visitors expected to stay, spend this weekend

BY JOHN COX, Californian staff writer

jcox@bakersfield.com

| Tuesday, Mar 02 2010 06:23 PM

Last Updated Tuesday, Mar 02 2010 06:31 PM

This weekend is going to be big for local hotels. As in, big the way Christmas is for retailers. Big the way Halloween is for candymakers.

In other words, if you need a hotel room this weekend, and you haven’t booked it yet, good luck finding a place near Bakersfield.

On Tuesday a guy e-mailed the organizer of one of three big events coming to town this weekend. He’d tried to find his family a room and couldn’t, so he’s bringing the motor home, organizer Donna Nelson said.

“It’s wild and crazy,” said Nelson, whose AYSO all-star soccer tournament at the Kern County Soccer Park is expected to attract 96 teams.

Her event alone is expected to bring in about 10,000 people. And that’s not counting the 17,000 planning to attend the state high school wrestling championship at Rabobank Arena, or the 30,000 or so spectators heading to the March Meet drag race at Auto Club Famoso Raceway.

This is all wonderful news not just for hotels but restaurants and gas stations — any business that caters to out-of-towners. Official estimates put the drag race’s economic impact at more than $3 million, and the wrestling tournament at more than $1 million.

Funny thing is, it’s all a coincidence. Only October gives this weekend any competition in terms of big local gatherings happening at the same time, Bakersfield hospitality executive Don Cohen said.

He’s not complaining.

“We are so thrilled. I mean, this is what we live for,” said Cohen, manager of the Bakersfield Convention & Visitors Bureau. “So we are in our glory on a week like this.”

The general manager of the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, Carlos Navarro, expects to be full up this weekend. Over at the Courtyard by Marriott, general manager Jenny Gatlin said anyone without a reservation will have to look for somewhere to stay near the bottom of the Grapevine, in Buttonwillow or even Visalia.

Nobody on her staff better ask for the day off.

“We’re gonna need all hands on deck for a weekend like this,” Gatlin said.

Bakersfield hotels can certainly use the business. Data provided by Smith Travel Research show that hotels in the city took in $117.3 million last year, about 10 percent less than they did in 2008.

Over the same period, average hotel occupancy rates in Bakersfield slipped from about 58 percent to about 53 percent, Smith Travel Research reported.

There’s a slight downside: Locals might want to brace themselves. County tourism leader Rick Davis said wives and children of some drag racing enthusiasts tend to take a break at some points to stretch their legs at local museums and such.

“All of our attractions will get some increased activity,” said Davis, executive director of Kern’s Board of Trade, the county tourism agency.

Not a problem. Nelson, at AYSO, said part of the reason Bakersfield hosts the annual tournament is because locals know how to behave themselves.

“We are considered to be very hospitable as a city,” she said, “not only as a soccer destination.”

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A Queens woman shed tears of a clown after toppling over in her big, plastic shoes, a lawsuit says.

Sherri Perper, 56, dressed up as a Bozo for Halloween 2008, wearing a pair of red, Forum Novelties shoes.

The Bayside woman fell over while wearing the footwear, which she claims are defective and dangerous.

As her husband’s billion-dollar fraud scheme was imploding last Halloween, Kim Rothstein went shopping for more shoes at Nordstrom.

She liked expensive shoes. And Louis Vuitton handbags. Gucci accessories. Evening dresses by Zola Keller. Shirts, sweaters and jeans from Cache Luxe. She could burn through thousands of dollars on a shopping outing, or drop nearly $5,000 buying from a chic Los Angeles boutique online.

“This happened to be a platform shoe that I liked and they had it in my size, which I can’t get very often. I would just buy several at one time so that I would just have them,” she said in sworn testimony two weeks ago, as lawyers grilled her about her spending habits and the torrents of Ponzi cash that powered her American Express account.

The 150-page deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sun Sentinel, provides Kim Rothstein’s version of life during her husband’s swindle, as it grew into the largest in South Florida history and then collapsed last fall. While she acknowledges her spendthrift ways in the document, it leaves many questions unanswered — she claims to have been in the dark about her husband’s secretive dealings and his relations with his biggest investors.

Under oath, Kim Rothstein said she spent so much, collected so much jewelry, brought home so many shopping bags that she can’t remember it all — it’s now a blur.

But her life of luxury was lonely, hectic even, with all the social events, charity balls and public-appearance demands. She had her hands full just serving as one of her husband’s many handlers — he was frenetic, unmanageable, a whirlwind.

Scott Rothstein, 47, pleaded guilty in January to five counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud and faces up to 100 years in prison when he is sentenced May 6. There is a sweeping federal investigation under way that is expected to ensnare co-conspirators.

Kim Rothstein spent about three hours on Feb. 18 in a Fort Lauderdale conference room with an array of lawyers who are dissecting her husband’s fraudulent scheme to sell non-existent legal settlements to investors. The attorneys are hunting for any assets they can claw back to repay Scott Rothstein’s cheated investors.

She answered questions about her lifestyle, her finances, the many homes the couple owned, what she knew about her husband’s business ventures, the enormous political contributions made in her name and her prolific shoe-buying. She said she had no inkling her husband was running a massive scam.

Kim Rothstein repeatedly referred to Scott Rothstein as “him” or “he,” and to clarify, the attorneys had to ask several times if she meant her husband.

The lawyers were armed with her American Express charge card records dating to 2005, which they used to refresh her memory about her purchasing sprees that totaled nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The questioning began with some basics: She met Scott Rothstein at a barbecue in 2003 and started dating him two years later, she said. The couple married on Jan. 26, 2008, in a lavish weekend-long affair attended by Gov. Charlie Crist at the Versace mansion on South Beach.

Kim Rothstein, who turns 36 next month, said her education consisted of “almost an associate’s degree from Broward Community College.” She tended bar at Blue Martini, an upscale watering hole at The Galleria, and dabbled in real estate sales, but the sales were not highly lucrative for her. She said her personal savings, which she said she is now using to pay her living expenses, amounted to about $100,000 last fall.

The questioning about her spending began with Zola Keller, a high-end clothier on Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale. “She does custom dresses, gowns, gala clothing, that sort of thing,” Kim Rothstein said, adding she shopped there “per his [her husband's] instructions.” She spent $42,000 at the shop over the years, according to the American Express records cited by the attorneys.

The lawyers asked about her purchases at Shop 603, another Las Olas retailer, where she spent more than $12,000 on gifts for family and friends. Next up were the Louis Vuitton purchases at Neiman Marcus: $23,000 worth of handbags.

“I just went in there really when I was on a mission for gifts, that sort of thing,” Kim Rothstein said. “Some of them were for me, personally.”

As the questioning about the luxury leather goods went on, Scott Rothstein’s criminal defense attorney, Marc Nurik, piped up: “All the women are salivating at this table,” the transcript of the deposition relates.

Then she was asked about $21,000 in shoe purchases over the years, and the trip to Nordstrom on Halloween last year. Her husband had mysteriously fled to Morocco that week as investors clamored for their missing money, and she consoled herself with some new shoes.

The week before, the five-foot blonde spent $4,700 online buying footwear from XTC on Melrose, a Los Angeles store that advertises that its clients include Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears.

“I have very small feet; I have to special order,” Kim Rothstein explained.

Apparently astonished at the volume of the purchases, Theresa Van Vliet, the former federal prosecutor asking the questions, remarked, “I like shoes — that’s a lot of shoes.”