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Tree ceremony plants seeds for peace, hope
By John Gutierrez-Mier
Express-News Staff Writer

A single live oak sapling — adorned with the names of children who died violently in San Antonio this year — was planted Friday on the grounds of the downtown Peace Center to launch a local commitment to a decade of peace and nonviolence.

"The symbol of the tree is hope," said Ann Helmke, director of the Peace Center at 127 McCullough Ave. "As a new millennium descends upon us, we need to have hope."

Helmke said the local effort is part of an international movement that began as an appeal by various Nobel Peace Prize laureates who petitioned the United Nations to commemorate the first decade of the millennium with a call for peace and nonviolence.

The United Nations adopted the resolution in November 1998, and the year 2000 has been declared "the year of education." The ceremony drew about 40 to the site, mostly from San Antonio's social activist community.

Carlos de la Torre, a bilingual/bicultural education studies graduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said violence in today's society has become too easy to dismiss.

"Violence and especially violence among youths is becoming more and more common," de la Torre said. "As adults, there should be a responsibility among us to help out and stop that violence."

During the brief ceremony, the names of youths killed this year in San Antonio were read aloud, including that of Mary Beatrice Perez, an 8-year-old girl who disappeared from Market Square during Fiesta. Her body was found a few days later along Alazan Creek.

She still was wearing the Mickey Mouse T-shirt she had on the night she vanished. The case remains unsolved.

Helmke's 13-year-old daughter, Kara, an eighth-grader at Alamo Heights Middle School, helped shovel dirt onto the oak tree's roots. She said many youths are becoming accustomed to violence. "Violence is real and does happen," she said. "It's really important that it stops."

Information about the campaign's future activities is available at 224-HOPE.

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