Frankel volunteers with a group of 12 health workers for a two-week period yearly. He's been to Peru seven times and Brazil once, and he'll head for Vietnam in February. "It's an incredible experience," he says, "being exposed to different cultures, taking part in the healing and seeing the gratitude extended."

It's a mass humanitarian effort, not just from those who fly in but also from the host health workers, who help in innumerable ways. Frankel told of a 6-year-old who had been bitten on the arm by a highly poisonous water snake while fishing. He lived far from medical help in the Amazon jungle.

His father, a fisherman, desperately paddled him by boat for days down the river to find treatment. By good fortune, the Interplast team was there in the Peruvian city of Iquitos and, after a harrowing fight for life, the boy rallied.

"If we hadn't been there with antibiotics and knowledgeable treatment, he wouldn't have survived. We were able to save his arm, and today he's a fully functioning 9-year-old," says the doctor.

Another patient had an abnormal eyelid that wouldn't close over her eye, so she was bound to lose the eye, with its being unprotected. This youngster was rushed down the river via speedboat by American missionaries. An eyelid was creatively constructed by the Interplast team. She was so grateful she wanted the visitors to come to her home, so they obliged, much to her great delight.

Interplast patients are extremely poor, and most of those in Peru are fishermen, who live in huts with barely a roof. After one trip, as the team's members were leaving, the entire village lined the corridors of the town to applaud them. Listeners find it impossible to hear his Interplast stories dry-eyed.

STAR SUB: Marion Harkness, longtime Los Gatan, won a Reach for the Stars award in honor of her 39 years as a substitute teacher in the elementary school district. She was called a dedicated and outstanding substitute teacher by Superintendent Mary Ann Park at a recent school board meeting.

Family and friends who witnessed the award include husband Bill; and offspring Jane Herberich and husband John, and Dana Harkness and wife Gina with their daughter; plus friends Bart and Terri Raynaud. Reach for the Stars publicly recognizes unusual and outstanding contributions to the district.

Marion was presented with a pin as part of the honor. She is also an active volunteer in the community, working for the Presbyterian Church among other agencies. She was a nominee for the Los Gatos Senior of Distinction Award in 2003.

ROTARY BASKETS TO FAMILIES: Julian Rodriguez heads up the Family Christmas program whereby Rotarians donate holiday food baskets to a selected list of those in need. This year his committee was composed of LeRoy Neider, Dave Downey, Lloyd Grant, Curtis Wright and Tina Orsi-Hartigan.

Though the baskets are delivered a couple of weeks before Christmas, Rodriguez noted that one family put the turkey in the oven immediately: it was their only food.

CHURCH COLLECTIONS: Saratoga Federated Church collects food and clothing and gifts for the needy at this time of year. The donations come from many different churches and individuals.

JAZZ CATS: Those providing music on the Morning Rotary Club float in the Los Gatos Children's Christmas & Holidays Parade were Don and Gary Weller—Don on keyboard, Gary on guitar. Though brothers, they had never played together as a duo. But, on the Thursday night before the parade, they got together in a Campbell garage.

The sound system for the float was being designed there. Both men graduated from LGHS in the '70s and live in Los Gatos. Don has a piano studio in town and Gary is involved in start-ups. Also on the float were Joan Perry, John Curtis, Darrell Monda and Diana Pleasant. Pleasant worked the sound system and Monda held forth as "The Cat in the Hat."

IN TOP TEN: Scott Whitney's Winter Wonderland MP3 is ranked ninth among the most downloaded in Amazon.com's digital music holiday music file. It was also listed as the 18th-most downloaded of all available files on Amazon.

Included on his ChristmAcoustic and ChristmAcoustic II are "Greensleeves," "We Three Kings," "Little Drummer Boy," "Noel," "White Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland." The download address is http://artist.amazon.com/scottwhitney.

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