Two young leaders show us how to get things done
If there is anything many of us have learned during the past eight months of COVID-19 pandemic, it is how hard it is to get normal stuff done, like, say, going out for groceries, or scheduling a home repair.
We have had so much of the business of normalcy taken away by the virus and the mostly sensible measures we need to take in order to resume some semblance of our normal daily lives.
If you want to look for inspiration somewhere, it can be found. In this case, two young women who make continuous good decisions and put their heart and soul into getting something done that will help others.
One of them is Quartz Hill High student Asiah Giuntoni, whose ambition is to be an astrobiologist. For the rest of us, that means space science, the biology of living in outer space.
“Asiah was 11 years old when she met Joe Kittinger and Art Thompson,” her grandmother Dana Kilanowski said. “They inspired her.”
Kilanowski, author and historian of test pilot and Edwards AFB history, was referring to Joe Kittinger, the legendary test pilot who made the first freefall from outer space in 1960. Thompson is the home-grown AV tech genius who orchestrated Felix Baumgartner’s 2012 record-setting freefall from space for Red Bull, which was televised and livestreamed worldwide.
But Asiah, now a teenager headed for higher things, put aside personal ambition to initiate a local project. Last Friday evening, a small group gathered, masked and distanced, at the Quartz Hill Chamber of Commerce on 50th Street West. There, Asiah and Chamber directors who supported the project, opened the 24-hour-a-day Quartz Hill Food Pantry. It is a brightly decorated armoire filled with non-perishable food that anyone in need can come and get.
“I know we have hunger in Quartz Hill and not everybody can drive,” she said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Here, people can come up and take what they need.”
Contributions of non-perishable food or donations to support the effort can be made to the Quartz Hill Chamber, which is next door to the Sheriff’s Sub-Station on 50th Street West.
Leadership is doing. Another doer is Maria Kyupelyan, Miss Antelope Valley. At 10 a.m. today, in partnership with the City of Palmdale, Maria is planting a tree at Poncitlan Square to memorialize Army soldier Vanessa Guillen, who was cruelly murdered in the environs of Ft. Hood, Texas.
Maria is attending CSUN to become a special education teacher. She is a Coffee4Vets regular with her mother. She believes in people who serve others, in the armed services and in civilian society.
Army Spc. Guillen disappeared April 22 and her remains were found at the end of June. She has come to symbolize the Army’s urgent need to vastly improve response to predatory behavior against women in the military. Honoring her memory is a way to keep that issue alive even if Guillen, who always wanted to be a soldier, is not.
Asiah Giuntoni and Maria Kyupelyan are two practical dreamers who have a vision, then go out and make it so.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” Maria said.
We must hope that is the way of it. These two are leading the way.