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NEWS photo Julis Iverson

CINDERELLA Project co-founder Christina Sears is hoping North Shore residents will empty out their closets in support of the non-
profit organization she and friends have founded to heip outfit disadvantaged teens for grad night.

Layne Christensen
News Reporter lnyne@nsnews.com

WITH help from the community,
Christina Sears hopes to play fairy god-
mother to high-school grads struggling
to make ends meet.

With friends Chery! Otto and Heather
MacKenzie, the North Van high-school teacher
has started the Cinderella Project. The non-profit
organization seeks to make dreams come true for
underprivileged high-school grads throughout the
Lower Mainland.

‘Their idea is to collect donations of new or gen-
tly used gowns, shoes, handbags and jewelry for
wear by underprivileged grads “so they can look

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Scheme aims to hel
underprivileged grads

forward to their graduation with anticipation and
pride rather than a sense of awkwardness.”

Sears, who teaches English and drama at
Windsor Secondary, knows first hand the financial
difficulties some students face and how sensitive an
issue this can be.

“As a teacher, I'm very aware that there are kids
who have monetary issues but they're not going to
advertise that fact,” she says.

Students in need of fairy godmotherly inter-
vention this grad season will be identified through
a referral process involving Family Services of

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Greater Vancouver, school counsellors and social
workers.

Students who are selected to benefit from the
service will be invited to attend a “boutique
night” ac the end of April to select cheir outfit — a
gown, shoes, jewelry and, the founders are hoping,
even makeup.

Sears says that she and her colleagues had the
idea to start the project after one of them viewed
an episode of Oprah last spring. The talk show
profiled the success of a similar initiative in: the
United States. .

Doug Sabourin, executive director of Family
Services of Greater Vancouver, thinks the project’s

See Family page 18

Don’t rush
the art of
kickboxing

ARE you planning to kick
and punch your way to
fitness with one of the
hot, new cardio kickbox-
ing programs?

Millions of exercisers are try-
ing today’s most popular trend
in physical activity fitness pro-
grams (like the infamous Billy
Blanks’ Tae-Bo) that provide the
heart-healthy benefits of cardio
exercise while offering the gains
in agility, strength, balance and
coordination that can be
achieved through martial arts
training.

Although the range of bene-
fits is impressive, cardio kickbox-
ing also poses considerable risk
of injury, particularly for non-
exercisers or participants who
don’t know how to protect
themselves from potential dan-
ger. Even very fit exercisers can
be challenged in their first class.

Cardio kickboxing is a com-
plicated form of exercise because
the range and planes of motion
differ from what most people are
used to, says Los Angeles
instructor Keli Roberts, choreo-
grapher of Kathy Smith’s recent
kickboxing video.

Roberts notes that traditional
martial arts training builds pro-
gressively; students learn each
new move gradually, giving their
bodies time to develop the abili-
ty to perform all moves safely
and correctly. Moves are not
done repetitively to fast music, as
they generally are in cardio kick-
boxing classes.

In your first cardio kickkox-
ing class you could find yourself”
performing advanced moves,
such as fan and hook kicks, even

See New page 34

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