Respite from disaster:
Schoolchildren displaced by the Valley Fire enjoy a special day of fun and learning at San Francisco Zoo.
The fire came just as Clio Maupin-Ahern was about to blow out the nine candles on her birthday cake.
Her mom, Gwendolyn, jammed the nine pint-size partygoers and a dozen animals into the back of the family’s cars then zoomed out of the driveway of their Middletown home just as the Valley Fire began licking at the trees.
“It was really scary and freaky,” Clio, a fourth-grader, said at a special day at the San Francisco Zoo for some of the young fire victims. “We barely made it out alive. Now the mountain is black, and all of the trees are burnt and fallen over. Luckily, our house was OK, and my birthday cake was even still there, but everything around it doesn’t even look like home anymore.”
Many of the students at Lake County International Charter School were displaced by the blaze, which destroyed the homes of more than 1,200 people in Lake County. The school has been closed for the past two weeks because of smoke damage and charring and is set to reopen Monday. On Thursday, the students were bused to the zoo, and the 100-acre space became their classroom.
About 100 students from
the charter school, as well as others from Minnie Cannon, Coyote Valley and Cobb Mountain elementary schools, were given free lunch and admission for the day. Activities included watching a grizzly bear feeding, riding the steam train and carousel, and seeing the animals — especially the polar bear, a crowd favorite.
The children, surprisingly resilient, held hands and hugged as they walked from exhibit to exhibit. They shrieked and laughed at the animals’ antics, pressing their hands and faces against the exhibit Plexiglas. Many of them had never been to the zoo before and pointed excitedly at each furry creature. Clio carried her friend, Sarah Hudson, 8, on her back, and the two tried to race an employee driving a golf cart.
‘Cool day’
“I had missed seeing all of my friends,” Sarah, a fourth-grader, said. She wore a black panda T-shirt and leopard print pants for the day. “My dad’s house burned down and I lost all of my stuffed animals. But now I get to see all of the real animals and the bears. This has been such a cool day.”
Gwendolyn MaupinAhern, Clio’s mom and the director of the charter school, said it was a great opportunity to let the kids be kids again.
“They need to be together so they can talk about what happened,” she said. “It’s a small school, and we are an extended family for each other. By not being together, it made a traumatic event even more traumatic. We are trying to regroup, and coming to the zoo together was the perfect way to do that.”
The zoo was more than happy to welcome them, said Joe Fitting, the zoo’s deputy director.
“The hard part was getting here,” Fitting said. “Nature can be a natural stress-reliever, and I am so happy the kids can relax here and see all of the animals. We really want to help support these schools in every form and fashion. They’re in a crisis now, and we are there for them.”
‘Stressful and scary’
Tewodros Michael, 13, an eighth-grader at the charter school, said he misses the structure of the school day. He escaped his home with a backpack full of books and homework assignments. His house was spared, but for the past few weeks, he has been shuffled between family members’ homes.
“It was stressful and scary, and I was terrified our school was going to burn down,” he said. “There were flames everywhere, and everything was getting destroyed. Like, I haven’t been so scared in my entire life. It was a devastating experience.”
But things are better now, he said, because the school is rallying together. The zoo day was the first time he had seen many of his classmates since the fire.
“I love all of the people at my school,” Tewodros said. “Today is like a big family reunion. We saw the anteaters and the bears, and we are all together far away from the fire. It couldn’t get better.”
“We saw the anteaters and the bears, and we are all together far away from the fire. It couldn’t get better.” Tewodros Michael, eighth-grader, Lake County International Charter School