East Hills launching kites and dreams

Kids in East Hills are building kites this week, and as far as they know, a kite is just a kite. But the adults leading them see the added thrust of metaphor.

The kite soars up over neighborhoods, up above turf and boundaries, but on a string, more tethered the more it flops around and acts goofy, given more string as it begins to catch the wind and soar.

Mattie Woods, an elder at Petra International Ministries, took it further: "You can choose your material," she told 14 children and 10 parents in the Second East Hills community center. "Back in the day, we used paper. You have choices in life."

The children were ages 8-14. They listened as Mattie Woods told them to "choose education. Stop buying games; make your own games. You can draw? Make your own comic strip." Most of the children were hanging on her words, along with the parents. "I want you parents to start giving chores in the house." One little boy looked dramatically alarmed. "You wanna see a result, you have to make the effort," the reverand continued. "That's what life is about."

She picked up her triangular kite and described running with it. The kids were watching her, fascinated. In her limited space, she acted as if she were in a meadow, running, ready to launch her kite. "When it catches the wind, I let a little more string out."

Ronnald Randall, a Gulf War veteran, led the children in the song, "I Believe I Can Fly," the chorus of which they all sang with gusto.

In the computer lab, they found their homes on Google Earth "so you can see it as a kite sees it," said Arnold Perry, Rev. Woods' brother and an organizer of weeklong activities that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has funded as part of its Neighborhood Networks program.  Each local entity planned its own theme; for the East Hills planners, kites resonated on several levels.

Mattie Woods is a kite flyer and so is Rick Dennis, an Air Force veteran and neighborhood volunteer who taught the kids how to make their own kites out of newspaper, string, glue and balsa rods.

Mr. Perry assembled the volunteers and said he hopes to carry the idea of "More than a Kite" week over into the school year. In coming weeks, they will go hiking. He told the kids: "You all are going to learn how to build trails and about habitats, and the best among you are going to go with me fishing."

He said he wants this group of 14 children and 10 parents to increase to 100 by the end of this month.

This grouping of children straddled that line that separates the blase eye rollers from kids who are fun to be around. An 8-year-old boy with uneven front teeth sat eager on the edge of his seat, singing and smiling at the ideas the adults threw out. An 11-year-old girl sat looking as if this was the dumbest thing she had ever been asked to do. After the first hour, some boys started drumming pencils on the table. One boy raised a bottle of glue above another boy's head.

Then Rick Dennis, in an extremely soft voice that he refused to raise, got them quiet. He passed each child four full pages of old Post-Gazettes. "Pair off into groups of two," he told them. "Find someone you want to buddy with. You're going to help your buddy glue his, then he's going to help you glue yours."

To a little girl in a pink dress, he said, "Young lady, I am going to buddy with you." She beamed. Then they all got to work making kites.