Concert to Help Students Pay for Trip to Holocaust Sites

A group of Woodrow Wilson High School students who call themselves the Freedom Writers in homage to the civil rights group will perform “Together for Tolerance,” a two-hour concert tonight at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Center.

The concert is a fund-raiser to help the 150 students--a diverse cross-section of race, religion and income whose teacher, Erin Gruwell, has used tolerance as a theme of their English studies--pay their way to visit European Holocaust sites after their graduation next month.

Their concert will be preceded by a home-cooked multicultural feast.

The students will perform folklorico, Cambodian and Native American dances, stepping, rap and poetry. There will also be a video montage of their experiences together. Tickets for the show, available at the box office, are $10 for adults, $5 for children. Food tickets are $8 each.

The Freedom Writers wrote a collection of journal entries last year chronicling their upbringing. Their stories will be published in 1999 by Doubleday as part of a book on their four years together. They have had the same teacher for English and work together as a group. Proceeds from the book will help pay their college tuitions.