November 3, 2006

Youth to present videos of Veterans from WWII to Iraq
at San Jose City Hall City Council Chambers Nov. 11

The pubic is invited to a presentation of short videos documenting the lives of local veterans that will be featured at the 6th annual “Tribute to Service,” to be held at the San Jose City Council Chambers on Saturday, November 11 at 3 p.m.

The videos were produced by local area students who are part of a national initiative called Stories of Service, an intergenerational educational program that is mobilizing youth and adults to use computers to create “digital stories” to preserve the stories of unsung heroes in their community that can be shared with schools, libraries, museums, and with a global audience over the Internet. Students who participate in the program receive Community History Awards from The History Channel, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Youth Serve America.

Students receiving the Community History Award at this year’s Tribute are Yeun Byun, Robert Corpus, Nick Molle, Cang Le, Filbert Zhang, Cuong Le, Jessica Saini, Tracy Chou, Sareena Avadhany, Richard Chen, Quinn McCourt, Chris Shelton, Kartik Venkatraman, Chelsea Mao, Elena Sandoval and Kelly Estes. 

Highlights of this year’s Tribute program will be videos by Jonna Hoppes Doolittle about her legendary grand father Jimmy Doolittle who led the famous bomber raid after Pearl Harbor, and Kelly Estes, a junior at the Mitty School, whose great uncle died during the Raid. The program will also include a reflection on President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms by San Jose resident Jerry Rosenthal, a B25 gunner during WWII, as well as videos by Korea and Vietnam veterans, and families who lost loved ones in the Iraq war.

The Stories of Service program was started in Silicon Valley in 1998 by the nonprofit Digital Clubhouse Network, and is supported in California by the AMVETS Service Foundation, with software donated by Adobe Systems. Local partners include History San José, San José State University, Santa Clara County Office of Education, the California Pioneers of Santa Clara Valley and the City of San José.

Local members of the “greatest generation” who helped establish the program will also be honored during this year’s Tribute. They include San Jose residents Jerry Rosenthal, Dr. Harold Cole, Ysidor Sanchez, Peter Radonich, Gaye Pare, Lavada Begley Peterson (Los Gatos), Don Irving (Saratoga), Al Tortolano, Rudy Tokiwa (Santa Clara), Layton Warn, Ed Koch, Juanita Harris, and Jack Thatcher (Sunnyvale).

The Tribute to Service program is free and open to the public, with seating on a first come, first served basis.  For more information, please contact: generalcorpus@sbcglobal.net or visit www.stories-of-service.org. San José City Hall is located at 200 E. Santa Clara Street between Fourth and Sixth Streets in downtown San José.