Latest news with #HuntingtonBeachUnionHighSchoolDistrict
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Huntington Beach nonprofit Robyne's Nest, which helps at-risk teenagers, readies for new chapter
The late Fred Rogers, of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' television fame, was given some advice by his mother for tough or scary times. 'Look for the helpers,' Rogers once recalled. 'You will always find people who are helping.' Robyne Wood of Huntington Beach is a helper. That will remain true regardless of Wood's status at Robyne's Nest, the nonprofit she started in 2015 to help at-risk and homeless high school students who are drug- and alcohol-free. But after a decade in charge, she's stepping away. Wood announced last month that she will be resigning as Robyne's Nest executive director in January. She said she feels the timing is right for her. Her husband, Kirby, turns 65 next year and will also be retiring. Her daughter Savana is getting married next year, while her son Parker just graduated from high school. So Wood is stepping away for a new chapter and some well deserved time off. 'I never saw myself being here more than 10 years, I don't know why.' she said. 'Robyne's Nest is doing really well financially. In our schools and in our programs, it's really sound. What better time to hand something off to somebody else to continue it than when it's doing great?' It can be considered a full-circle moment, as Robyne's Nest was born out of Wood's volunteer help when Savana was a student at Dwyer Middle School. Morgan Smith, the director of certified human resources for the Huntington Beach Union High School District, was principal at Dwyer back then. 'In an area of Huntington Beach where there's so much affluence, there's also extreme poverty,' Smith said. 'A lot of families were stacked in apartments three or four families deep. We had kids that went to Dwyer that were sleeping in vans at night. There wasn't a system in place for schools to really have the kind of consistent outreach.' Wood created a food pantry, but as the need became greater, more resources were needed. Smith suggested that she start a nonprofit, so she dove in. 'I had heard about a student who got kicked out of his house when he turned 18, and I was beside myself,' she said. 'There were a couple of other nonprofits that supported that age group, 18-24, but most of them, their idea was to put him in a sober living home, give him a motel voucher for a couple of days, an EBT card and a minimum wage job. I was just like, 'What kind of start in life is that?' It wasn't good enough for me.' Robyne's Nest has worked over the years with the Huntington Beach Union High School District and Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Newport-Mesa trustee Carol Crane has seen Wood become a familiar face at Back Bay High, an alternative school. 'She doesn't do it to be seen, she does it because she wants to,' Crane said. 'It's more to be there and support. Some people do things for their different purposes. For her, it's just very real.' Robyne's Nest held a 10-year anniversary celebration in April. The office on Talbert Avenue, which Robyne's Nest moved into in 2018, has expanded over the years. In the back is a food pantry, and upstairs is space for an in-house mental health and wellness program, as well as a therapy room. Next door is a thrift shop opened in 2022 that's open to the public and helps support the cause. Another key step was opening Robyne's Landing, a shared transitional living house in Huntington Beach for abandoned and severely neglected students. Wood said she lived there herself for three months after a house manager had a family emergency, which should surprise no one who knows her well. 'She is a dynamo,' said Tom Williamson, a past president of the Robyne's Nest Board of Trustees who owns Marina Auto Body. 'I've never met anybody like Robyne. I know that probably sounds like it's buttered up, but let me tell you. If you spend some time with her, 'no' is not in her vocabulary, she gets it done. I wish I had a whole bunch of employees like her. I've got a few, but my God.' Linda Temple, who just retired as a psychologist at Edison High School, said that she started working with Wood when she was providing snacks for high school students. Now Wood has a team of about 50 core volunteers, plus many more who help at the holiday season. 'It's such a transitional time, and it's so critical for students to have support and know they're not alone,' Temple said. 'Even on a good day, they're struggling. You have so many who have issues with parents at home, or they live with grandparents. The mental health issue is huge.' Wood said she herself would have been a Robyne's Nest kid. Growing up on the East Coast, she left home when she was 17 and moved to Maryland. 'I finished my senior year on my own, I worked, I rode the bus,' she said. 'I learned a lot of lessons. I know what these kids go through and try to share that with them.' Wood and her family moved to Huntington Beach in 2008. She has two noticeable tattoos on her left wrist. One is a cross and the other is her favorite Bible passage, Jeremiah 29:11. 'Everything I've done has come so easily,' she said. 'I put something out that I need this, I need that, and it comes. Good karma in the world, God's will, whatever you want to call it. But I think too, people just have trust in us. We're here, we're helping take care of the kids, we're pretty transparent about everything. We're not trying to Band-Aid everything, we're really trying to make lives better with all of the tools that we have.' The person who takes over as executive director at Robyne's Nest will undoubtedly have big shoes to fill. Smith, who has also been principal at Fountain Valley and Marina high schools, knows the nonprofit will continue doing important work, providing a support structure for hundreds of teenagers and young adults over the years. 'The place that they're at now, I don't know if she ever dreamed it would be there, but Robyne is just nonstop,' he said. 'You can't tell her no; she will find a way. We are all just in her gravitational field. She's like a shooting star passing through, and we all just kind of slowly get pulled in with her gravity and become part of it. It's exciting, and it's a lot of fun, but she is that center of the universe and it is all-consuming.'
Los Angeles Times
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Fountain Valley High seniors sent off to their futures
Fountain Valley High gave a grand send-off to its seniors on Wednesday, as the Barons shared a shining moment together during their commencement ceremony at Orange Coast College's LeBard Stadium. Before the event was over, 796 students heard their names called — the largest graduating class in the Huntington Beach Union High School District this year. 'Seniors, as you embark on your next adventure, remember the lessons you've learned within these walls,' Principal Paul Lopez said. 'Remember the friendships you've forged, the resilience you've built, and the dreams you've dared to chase. You are prepared, you are capable, and you are ready.' Lopez shared that Uy Pham gained admittance into Harvard, while Jacqueline Nguyen is headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kayla Nguyen, the ASB president, urged the graduates to consider who they have become beyond roles they fulfilled on campus. 'My fellow graduates, who are you today?' she asked. 'I'm not talking about titles like sports captains or club president, I'm talking about the person beneath those titles. That's who you really are. As you walk down the stage, think about who you've become throughout high school.' Lily Ogle performed the national anthem, and Hannah Querry and Avery Thepsisombath led their peers in a recital of the school's alma mater. The Fountain Valley Royal Regiment band did the honors in providing the processional and walk-out music. —Daily Pilot Staff
Los Angeles Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
An exploration of grief, ‘A Monster Calls' opens on stage in Huntington Beach
The monster in the new Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts production of 'A Monster Calls' continually bothers young Conor O'Malley. 'Stories are important, if they convey the truth,' the monster tries to reason with Conor at one point. The truth is, the story showcased in the play is one of loss and grief. Conor has to cope with the fact that his mom is getting more and more sick, dealing with cancer and chemotherapy. 'The whole show is about time, and time just goes,' director Jenny McClintock said. 'You think you have enough, but it just goes and goes. When you want to stop time, you just cannot.' 'A Monster Calls,' based on the 2011 novel by Patrick Ness, debuts Thursday night for four shows this weekend at the historic Huntington Beach Union High School District auditorium. It will likely be deeply personal for some patrons. Huntington Beach High School sophomore Antonio Lopez, who was double-cast as Conor along with Izzy Vosper, feels the connection with the character he is portraying. Lopez said he lost his own mother, Heather, to breast cancer last August, before he even knew anything about this production. 'It's been nice coming to terms, in a way, with the things that have happened in my life with this show,' he said. 'But it's also been pretty difficult … Throughout the play, his mom gets gradually more sick, and he has to deal with the fact that he's losing her. He wants his pain to go away, but she's the one who's giving him his pain. It's this emotional journey of him trying to let go, but also trying so hard to desperately hold onto the things that make him happy.' The two-hour play, presented by the Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts is set in contemporary times. That's not an accident for McClintock, in her fourth year as HBAPA faculty. Her first year, the students performed Shakespeare, then a Greek production, then a modern play and now this year's show, which is contemporary. The cycle will repeat again starting next year, she said. 'I want to expose them to all of theater, so that they have that experience going into college,' she said. 'This is contemporary, and it's very contemporary. The way it's staged is contemporary, it's very abstract. The actors never leave the stage. I might be a pupil at your school in one scene, and now I'm actually acting out your anger in kind of an abstract, physical way. It's unique, and they've embraced it.' Chairs sit on each side of the stage, ready to be put in formation depending on what the scene calls for. McClintock, who lost her own father to cancer when she was an adult, called the stage barren and empty. That symbolizes the grief the character Conor is going through as the condition of his mother, played by Robin McClure and Bianca Stratta, continues to worsen. The theme extends to the costume color choices of muted beige and also red, which can symbolize nightmares. Conor is visited each night by a large yew tree that transforms into a monster. 'For the makeup, we tied in a lot of the beige,' said Huntington Beach High senior Alessandra Pham, a hair and makeup designer. 'We usually don't use such heavy eye shadow on the men, but we used a lot of gold and browns. Even the boys have all of this gold glitter, so it kind of just flows throughout the cast.' Costume designer Rhonda Choat, aided by her daughter and HBAPA alumna Tara, said six professional-grade bald caps were purchased to put on the mother after she undergoes chemotherapy, as well as eight cheaper bald caps. The more expensive caps, reserved for the show itself rather than rehearsals, take 45 minutes to an hour to put on properly. Cameron Mullin, a Huntington Beach High junior who was double-cast as the monster along with Benjamin Marshall, said she sees the monster as representative of not only Conor's grief, but also Conor himself. 'I like to think of it as Conor in the future trying to tell past Conor that it's OK to be ashamed with how you feel,' Mullin said. 'It's OK to have these feelings, you just need to be able to tell the truth. As soon as you tell the truth, you'll be able to face whatever comes, you'll be able to move on.' Audrey Cone, a HBHS junior who did the sound design, said the show may be a bit scary but it's important to see, especially for teenagers. 'Not a lot of teens get to see us dealing with grief and just being so open about it,' she said. In another personal touch, McClintock cast her own twin children as 'young Conor.' Part of the show proceeds are going to Fran's Place Center for Cancer Counseling, based in Brea. For tickets to 'A Monster Calls,' visit
