Twenty-one students are studying this year at the Latvian summer high school Kursa, an increase of five from last year, according to co-director Tamāra Rūse. The school opened its five-week program June 29 at the West Coast Latvian Education Center.

One student will graduate from the high school this year, Rūse said. The graduation ceremony is scheduled Aug. 2.

The students hail from California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

This summer Kursa students are concentrating on preparing for the West Coast Latvian Song Festival, which is set Aug. 28-Sept. 1 in San Francisco. Many of the students will be participating in the event, Rūse said.

Students also are experiencing special activities while at Kursa, including a July 3 visit to the University of Washington in Seattle, where Guntis Šmidchens is leading the Baltic Studies Summer Institute.

The Latvian exile experience will be the theme of this year’s Gaŗezers summer high school, which will be attended by 137 students from the United States, Canada, Latvia and Holland.

Principal Elise Freimane introduced the theme during the high school’s opening ceremony near Three Rivers, Mich.

Students need to learn the history of the Latvian exile, Freimane said, even if it’s debatable whether the exile is over now that Latvia is once again independent.

“We can’t escape that we are the children of the exile,” she told students.

In preparation for the summer, students were asked to interview a family member who could tell about the experience of exile, as well as to gather some material evidence.

The high school’s history lessons also will benefit from the effort of Gaŗezers students from the Washington, D.C., area. They organized a bake sale to help fund improvements to the high school’s history classroom. With assistance from the ladies’ committee of the Latvian Ev.-Lutheran Church of Washington, D.C., the students donated USD 1,500 to the high school.

A total of 32 students are expected to graduate from the six-week high school in August.

Programs at the Latvian center Gaŗezers have received a USD 41,000 donation from profit made during last year’s song festival in Chicago.

Alberts Legzdiņš and other members of the song festival’s organizing committee announced the donation during the opening ceremony of the Gaŗezers summer high school. The song festival, in which students from the high school participated as choir singers and folk dancers, was held July 2002 in Chicago.

The largest share of the donation—USD 18,000—is earmarked for the high school. The high school also received USD 2,000 toward its participation in the next general song festival in the United States, scheduled in 2007 in Indianapolis.

The Latvian center itself received USD 15,000 for capital projects, Legzdiņš announced.

Also benefitting from the donation are the Gaŗezers kindergarten (USD 1,000), the children’s camp (USD 2,000) and the middle school (USD 3,000).