Meadowdale High School senior raises money for Lebanese orphans

Published 11:11 pm Monday, March 16, 2009

EDMONDS — Fadl Khalil unfastened the legs of a folding table and set it upright on the kitchen floor. Minutes later, his 18-year-old daughter, Amera Khalil, covered it with a sheath of yellow fabric and colorful Lebanese prayer beads.

Thirty-four years ago, a bomb exploded as Fadl walked along a street in Beirut, Lebanon. He lost a leg and moved to the United States for rehabilitation.

Now his daughter is trying to help children caught in the explosions and gunfire that continue to stain Lebanon.

The Meadowdale High School senior organized a traditional Lebanese dinner and auction to raise money for Child of Lebanon, a charity that gives money to Lebanese orphanages.

Amera has studied belly dancing for seven years and performed at the dinner. She decorated a friend’s home in Lebanese paintings and red, pink and blue prayer beads, and cooked an elaborate feast with her aunt Najwa Khalil, who flew from the state of Georgia to help. Forty people paid $20 each to ­attend the dinner Saturday night and bid on items at an auction. The event raised $2,050.

“I feel like I’m supposed to do something for the Lebanese people — and this is helping,” Amera Khalil said.

Her dad is pleased that his daughter is helping kids from his native country, but he says he’d be just as happy to see her raise money for children in Africa or China.

“It’s great that she is doing something for a good cause,” said Fadl Khalil, a Boeing engineer. “It doesn’t matter what the cause is. It puts humanity in her and responsibility.”

Fadl (which rhymes with cuddle) was just a year older than Amera when shrapnel tore through his body, nearly killing him. Lebanon’s civil war ended in 1990, but periodic fighting continues in parts of the country.

Amera Khalil has always been interested in Lebanon. She visited twice and spent happy days meeting her cousins, eating elaborate meals and shopping at the convenience store under her relatives’ home. She’d love to go back, but the threat of violence has kept her and her family away.

Researching the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon for a class assignment, she discovered that the war has left thousands of Lebanese children homeless. This year, when she had to pick a topic for her senior project, a graduation requirement, she thought of those children and organized the dinner.

“A lot of children have died because they don’t have medicine,” she said, as she stacked plates for the dinner. “That’s so sad because I look at my family, my little cousins. If anything happened to them like the other kids in Lebanon, my heart would just break. I want it to stop.”

As Meadowdale High School has become more diverse in the last decade, a growing number of students are incorporating their cultural heritage into their senior project, said Catherine Shaw, a Meadowdale English teacher who helps oversee senior projects. Students have hosted Filipino dances, a Nigerian celebration and a Horn of Africa event. She estimates a quarter of all senior projects have cultural ties.

“I’m really impressed,” Shaw said of Amera Khalil’s project. “She’s obviously got a really personal connection to the project. She’s very connected with Lebanon culture and she really wanted to do something with that.”

Najwa Khalil, Amera and her mom, Michelle Khalil, spent Friday and Saturday cooking plates of hummus, labneh yogurt, tabouli salad and shanglishi, a dish they make with feta cheese, tomatoes and onion. They made chicken kabobs, loubyeh green beans and baklava for dessert.

Amera arranged deals with local businesses to get wine discounts and items to sell at a small auction. Family friends Anne and Kurt Kutay offered to let Amera Khalil host the event in their Edmonds home.

She consulted with officials at the Lebanese Embassy to find a legitimate charity to donate to that served both Muslim and Christian children — not an easy task.

“We’re proud of her,” Michelle Khalil said, smiling at her daughter. “It was a big undertaking. I was skeptical at first, but she proved me wrong.”

Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292, kmanry@heraldnet.com.