For Immediate Release   

Media Contact: Kina Paegert, (760) 918-5377

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Young Girl, Los Angeles Fire Chief to Visit LEGOLANDâ May 23

To Raise Awareness for ‘Kid to Kid, Heart to Heart’ Project

Improbable duo celebrate efforts to bring children of 9-11 to California

Los Angeles & Carlsbad, Calif. (May 15, 2002) – A 9-year-old Southern California dynamo and a Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACFD) Chief are visiting LEGOLAND^â California Thursday, May 23 to be among the first to see the Carlsbad family theme park’s new attraction debut. LEGO Racers 4-D may be a hot new race car movie at LEGOLAND California – but Chief Gary Walsh and petite Sarah Wells are on a race of their own.

The unlikely pair has united to help bring the 409 families of New York City fire fighters, police, and port authority workers lost in the September 11^th tragedy to California for a much needed vacation. To thank LEGOLAND for donating 2,000 tickets to the project, LACFD will have a special fire engine at the LEGO Racers 4-D press party, with little Sarah sitting on top. The engine was repainted in the same style as New York City fire trucks, and displays that city’s emblems.

How the fire chief and the little girl teamed up is a story full of coincidences.

The youngster, Sarah, daughter of Sandra Barham and Cal Wells III, was deeply affected by the events of September 11^th, and immediately started to think of things she could do to help New York City children who lost parents in the tragedy. The 4^th grader enlisted the support of the headmaster at her school, St. Margaret’s Episcopal in San Juan Capistrano, and started selling lemonade and pictures of American Flags, drawn by a 5-year-old pen pal friend, to raise money.

Her goal was to bring about 10 children orphaned by the disaster to Southern California for a vacation jam-packed with theme park visits, playing at the beach and just relaxing in the sun.

Meanwhile, up in Los Angeles, Station 57 Fire Chief Walsh also wanted to assist his brothers across the country. Immediately after the disaster, he was on the next plane to New York to assist the stricken fire departments and deliver the support of the fire fighters on the West Coast. Upon his return to California, Chief Walsh continued to work on ways to help the families of firefighters, police and port authority workers who lost their lives. Coincidentally, Chief Walsh has a daughter at St. Margaret’s, so Headmaster Markham B. Campaigne got Sarah and Chief Walsh together.

The 6’2” burley, mustached fire chief and the tiny 9-year-old came face to face and shook hands on a formal agreement – they would work together to help the Fire department and Sarah’s “Kid to Kid, Heart to Heart” non-profit project reach out to as many of the New York families as possible. In addition to the lemonade and flag picture sales, Sarah is now enthusiastically selling NYFD pins that Walsh is supplying. Four dollars from every $5 pin sale go directly into the NYC vacation fund.

As word of the partnership spread, a mother of another student at the school wanted to help. At Captain Walsh’s suggestion, she commissioned artist William Motta to paint a picture of the NYC fire station that suffered major casualties on 9-11. LACFD fire fighters posed for him as he added them in front of the building. He then painted the faces of the fallen NYC firefighters on the bodies of the LACFD models, and presented the moving picture to Brooklyn Fire House 252. Copies of the painting are being made, and will be sold to raise additional funds for the project.

As the project gathers momentum, Southern California residents are offering their homes to the NYC families, theme parks and hotels are stepping up to the plate and people are donating money to help fly the guests here.

Sarah, whose Dad is a NASCAR heavyweight and owner of Precision Preparation, Inc., realized she had another potential “in.” NASCAR teams frequently fly from one coast to another – might they be able to bring some of the families along with them when they come to California? Realizing there was no stopping a determined 9-year-old on a mission, Wells agreed to help.

Sarah’s Mom, Architect Sandra Barham Wells, said her daughter’s passionate enthusiasm to help other youngsters is shared by countless other children who are trying to do their part.

“The 9-11 tragedy was a tough lesson, but an important one,” she said. “Can bad things happen to you? Yes. Do they? Yes. Is that enough to stop you? No. The kids are seeing that there are good people in the world, and if they have faith in the human race, they can rise to the occasion and do the right thing to take a step forward.”

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