Her mother helps her write donation letters and recycle cans and bottles.
Neighbors, friends and others also help in small ways.
Her younger brother is selling candy bars because he wants to buy his sister a one-way plane ticket to China.
Adena Bentley, a Fullerton resident and a seventh-grade honors student at Ladera Vista Junior High School in Fullerton, has been selected by People to People, an Ambassador Program, to take a two-week trip to China in July 2009.
Adena, 12, was selected for the trip because of her 3.70 grade-point average as well as her community service activities, which includes organizing clothes and toys for the homeless for her church, Orangethorpe Christian in Fullerton. She also went through a rigorous selection process for the trip, which included writing essays, obtaining two letters of reference and going through an interview process.
To prepare for the trip, Adena attends class one Sunday per month where she learns Mandarin Chinese phrases and Mandarin history as well as US History so that she can be prepared to answer questions that anyone may ask her, she says.
Adena excitedly says that during her 17-day trip to China she will visit the Terra Cotta Warriors, stay at a farm, help out at a school for children with Down’s Syndrome, see the Great Wall of China and also travel to Hong Kong.
Adena’s mother, Christina Campbell, a single parent raising not only her daughter but also her son Mathew, 10, is thrilled that her daughter has an opportunity to travel even though the cost of the trip is a steep $6300. She has helped her daughter in numerous ways to raise money for this trip, which includes helping her daughter write donation letters to various businesses in Fullerton, recycling cans and bottles and selling candy bars, which Mathew helps with. Florentine’s Bar and Grill donated $50 after receiving her letter.
They have currently raised roughly one-third of that amount through their various efforts, which include simple generosity, Campbell says. Co-workers, friends and neighbors have donated their cans and bottles towards recycling and a co-worker of her father gave him a lottery ticket worth $100 and told him it was to go towards his granddaughter’s trip to China.
“It’s amazing, people are giving her one dollar here, five dollars there,” she said. “When you get into a situation like this, you see the generosity of people.”
To help Adena reach her dream of traveling to China, donations may be made anonymously to
http://payment.peopletopeople.com by referencing her last name, Bentley, and her delegate ID number 10003816.
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