Excerpt #3 below: Post reporter Scott McCabe about our Lake Worth High School: “Project Lake Worth turns diversity into strength”.

Check back for Excerpt
#4 tomorrow.

To read Excerpt #1 in its entirety use this link:

“For what had begun six years earlier as a search for a way to save the high school had flowered into a movement to save the city itself — Project Lake Worth.”

Excerpt #2:

“Despite the rumors of Project Lake Worth’s imminent demise, Joe Egly, its former president, vows to keep it alive — no matter what it takes.”

A pull quote about Project Lake Worth
in Excerpt #3 below: 

“Project Lake Worth brought people together who would otherwise have never met and made things happen,”
Kathy La Croix said.*

Read more below about Project Lake Worth from Post staff writer Scott McCabe, datelined:

Sunday, February 14th, 1999.

Click on newspaper clipping from 18 years ago:

 From the timeline. 1992: “Project Lake Worth member Jody Gleason elected to school board.” 1996: “Model block program begins.”

Excerpt #3:

     Cantley [principal David Cantley] warned the district that without help, the school would have to close. He turned his office into the headquarters for a handful of citizens bent on saving the school, and the district provided $30,000 seed money.
     “We realized the problem was far broader,” said parent Jody Gleason, now a school board member. “To fix Lake Worth High, we needed to change the community and make diversity a strength.”
     The circle of volunteers grew. They broke into committees for education, business, housing, recreation, beautification and safety.
     The goals were so encompassing that, at first, the IRS wouldn’t approve the group as a tax-exempt nonprofit, said Joe Cappella, a Lantana Realtor and founding member of the group. “They couldn’t comprehend what we were doing.”
     As they taught themselves how to make “the system” work, they also tutored immigrants in English, their rights and responsibilities.
     High school teachers Carl Romano and Gerry Crocilla organized students to collect donated materials and fix run-down homes.
     “Project Lake Worth brought people together who would otherwise have never met and made things happen,” Kathy La Croix said.

Check back tomorrow for another excerpt about Lake Worth High School and Project Lake Worth.

Is it time for Project Lake Worth II?

*Kathy La Croix was executive director of Project Lake Worth in 1998; hired in 1993 for project.