By Sara Ballenger

Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier

Three honored with awards for youth activism, advocacy

The Mountain View-Los Altos-Los Altos Hills Challenge Team honored three residents with the 2001 Challenge Team Champion for Youth award, at its sixth annual benefit breakfast Thursday.

Nancy Mucha, a teacher and counselor at Crittenden Middle School and a Mountain View-Whisman school board member; Monique Kane, executive director of the Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC); and Len Edwards, Santa Clara County Superior Court and juvenile dependency court judge, were honored with a plaque and a certificate of appreciation from the California State Assembly for their activism and advocacy for youth in Santa Clara County.

Challenge Team, begun in 1987, is a community-based non-profit partnership of students, school districts, police departments, health service groups and community groups.

The team focuses on working together to prevent problems related to alcohol, tobacco and drugs in the community.

Trish Bubenik, superintendent of the Mountain View-Whisman School District, presented Mucha her award.

“This truly competent and caring professional has shown tremendous commitment to youth in her professional and personal life,” Bubenik said.

Mucha has taught at Crittenden for 17 years.

“She searches out students that need support and nurturing. Kids flock to Nancy because they know they will find a warm, supportive human being there for them when they most need it,”Crittenden Principal Carmen Giedt said.

“Like it or not, we are role models,” Mucha said during her acceptance speech. “Our daily choices and actions will echo through generations.”

Rich Fischer, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District superintendent, presented Kane her award.

“CHAC is a remarkable group that sprung from the community, in response to a community need, primarily helping kids,” Fischer said. “Whether it’s for drugs and alcohol, suicide, personal problems … CHAC is very much devoted to providing for kids’ needs.”

Fischer said Kane is working to help make her community a better place for youth. “People have said that under her leadership the original spirit of CHAC has really returned.”

Kane said when she first became a member of the Challenge Team, she was impressed with how much the community does for youth. “CHAC is a fabulous place. The reason I do so well there is because of our staff and our community.”

Honorable Charles Hayden, Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, presented Edwards his award.

“It costs about a million dollars a year to run one of our courtrooms. Judge Edwards is one who gives the taxpayers back far more than what his work and staff cost,” he said.

A champion for youth can go beyond local borders, Hayden said.

Edwards said he was honored to be included with Mucha and Kane in receiving the award. Hayden summed up the event by saying, “When I look out on the Challenge Team, if you stop to think of the incredible accomplishments that the groups that you folks represent and the work that you do, it makes all of you a champion of youth.

“I wish we had plaques for everyone today.”