Super Students
Saturday, June 21, 1997
Name: Ashley Katamoto
Age: 8
School: Aina Haina Elementary
Favorite subject: Everything
Future: Teacher or writer
Just when it seems the world is void of compassion, someone like Ashley Katamoto comes along. Her 'crazy idea' is to care
It was during the last week of school this year that families of Aina Haina Elementary third-graders received fliers asking for donations. "My mother used to be in cancer ...
so I decided to start HDP (Help Dying People)," read the request by the 8-year-old daughter of Lorraine Soken and Kenneth Katamoto.
"Sometimes I think of really crazy ideas," Ashley said. "It started because my music teacher taught us a song -- 'We Are the World' -- and I thought of starting a club to help people who have cancer." The club met during recess and after school. With support from teacher LiAnn Berman, members posted fliers in classrooms and sent out the letter to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
"Ashley is a very courageous third-grader who wants to help her mother and others," Berman said.
The goal was to raise one dollar from each of the 31 students in the class, but after just one week, the total rang up to $150.
"I thought it was a really neat idea," said Ashley's mother. "She's just like that. In San Francisco once when she saw a homeless man ... she said, 'Mommy, can I have a dollar to give that man?' "
Ashley found out about her mother's cancer three years ago. "I didn't know there was such a thing as dying," Katamoto said. Now that she does, she is determined to continue the club.
Mary Sano, Special to the Star-Bulletin
