Young Achiever profile

Fenton girl learns about service, helping

Eleven-year-old Lara Bakula said the one adult, besides her parents, who has influenced her the most is a neighbor, Mrs. Rene Fletcher. Lara said, "If she sees a problem, she tries to fix it."

Lara's own commitment to community service was a big factor in her being named a 2008 Gateway Young Achiever. Metro-area kids are selected for accomplishments in academics, extra-curricular activities and service to their communities.

(Young Saint Louis.com announced the 2008 Gateway Young Achiever winners in last May's edition. Then, last month, YSL.com started a series of individual profiles of elementary and middle school winners. To read the first profile, click here.)

Lara's "helping" efforts extend throughout all facets of her life.

In a letter supporting Lara's nomination, Ms. Fletcher said, "What doesn't show in her resume is how much she enjoys these projects. The enthusiasm she brings is contagious. She genuinely enjoys being involved and helping others."

Lara Bakula

One recent example of her community service showed up when the mother of one of Lara's dance lesson friends had a serious heart operation. Lara and the other kids set up a pretzel sale and car wash that raised $1,500 to help the family to defray health care costs.

Lara's mother, Kathy Bakula, said, "The girls at dancing are a close-knit group."

Lara's Girl Scout group is also active in community service projects.

Last December, the troop adopted a single-parent family with five kids. One of the children died. The Girl Scouts combined to create a full Christmas for the family, including buying and wrapping presents for all.

That same group of Girl Scouts goes caroling and makes "lap warmers" for residents of retirement homes, made stuffed dolls for kids in hospitals and wrote cards and letters to soldiers.

Lara said she enjoys activities that let her cooperate with classmates and friends to help others.

Among her elementary school activities include being "buddies" with younger students at her school, Kellison Elementary School. Last school year, she was paired with a 2nd grader and also with a kindergartener.

Her job was to help younger kids get familiar with how the school works.

This fall, Lara will move to Rockwood South Middle School. And, she's already working on getting involved when she starts 6th grade.

She is a member of the Rockwood South cheerleading squad and is practicing this summer. She'll be cheering at the football games this fall.

"I also want to be one of the Ambassadors at school," she said. The Ambassadors do the same helping of younger students that Lara did with 2nd and kindergarten kids at Kellison Elementary.

One of her activities this summer has both a service aspect as well as making some money. Lara and her twin sister, Sara, share an all-day babysitting assignment five days a week.

Sara watches the kids during the morning and then Lara takes over for the afternoon. The girls each get $10 per daily shift.

Ms. Bakula said the two girls cooperate well on their babysitting but can be pretty competitive in other things. When asked about which of them is older, Lara said, "She's two minutes older. But, she's also two inches shorter than I am."

Lara said part of her babysitting earnings go to pay off the cost of her new cell-phone. But, she says part of the earnings, along with money she gets from birthdays and such, are put into bank savings accounts.

In elementary school, Lara was enrolled in the Rockwood School District's Center for Creative Learning. Those advance classes are held in a separate building. The CCL classes in the last school year include studies of World War II and organ transplants.

She said her favorite subject in school is science. She said last year's science classes involved a lot of experiments. Her Science Fair experiment involved comparing the times it took for several different types of candy to dissolve in water.

Lara said the shifting between classrooms in elementary school will help her get used to life at the much larger Rockwood South Middle School. That school will have kids from four different elementary schools and the kids shift classrooms between each period.

She said about the only thing she's worried about is getting a visit to her school locker finished in the few minutes allowed to change classes.

But, she admits that isn't too much to worry about and she's looking forward to getting involved in the bigger school.

Lara said she's planning on going to college and wants to attend the University of Missouri's School of Journalism in Columbia. She wants to be either a newspaper reporter or a TV anchor person.

She's also got her future job location picked out. "I want to live in Colorado where they don't have hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes. I want to be safe."

Lara parasailing with her mother

When asked about heavy snowfall in the Colorado winters, Lara said, "I like snow."

When asked about her most memorable life experience so far, Lara said it was parasailing during a Florida vacation this summer. She said she and her mother went 1,200 feet into the air while being towed by a boat.