Santa Monica school prepares holiday foods for needy Knife in hand, 6-year-old McKenna Crombie contributed to a Thanksgiving dinner that would feed more than 150 people - a large feat for a kindergartener. With the help of her teacher at Pluralistic School One in Santa Monica, she quartered zucchini slices and nearly took her small fingertips along with them. "Try curling your fingers in so you don't cut yourself with the knife," teacher Traci Saruwatari softly instructed, positioning her student's hand like a claw on the vegetable. McKenna and the other pupils in the combined kindergarten and first-grade class were making vegetarian chili for a pre-Thanksgiving feast for the recovering homeless and mentally ill men and women at Step Up on Second, a community services agency. The private elementary school has partnered with the agency for 20 years to provide the meals, exercising the school's philosophy of actively being part of society and the agency's mission to integrate its participants into the community. "It's a group experience," said Head of School Joel Pelcyger. It's what we do in life. It's why we're here: to help each other. Throughout the school, the smell of pumpkin pie wafted out of one of the campus kitchens. Second-graders gathered in teams of three to measure, mix and pour the ingredients into ready-made pie shells. Chatter about where they were spending the holiday soon turned into a conversation about dream vacations and then veered into a discussion about the salad they made last year. The students tried to remember who it went to. "I know it helped some people," one said, wiping her pumpkin-covered fingers on the table. I like helping," said another. Ooooh, yeah. Helping is really nice. I think I'd rather help people than go to Disneyland. During the week leading up to Thanksgiving, the school's 220 students cook a variety of foods including lasagna and macaroni and cheese. They present the fruits of their labor to the community group after a brief presentation during which they read poems, sing and listen to a representative from Step Up on Second about the journey to recovery. The interaction humanizes the topic of homelessness and mental illness, said Len Lovallo, a vocational program manager for the organization. "It's an important part of how we see the homeless," Lovallo said. It demonstrates an important part of progress that the students have the ability to listen to and interact with people recovering from mental illness. Santa Monica's homeless population has been declining over the years; the most recent count showed 769 people compared with 999 in 2007, according to the city's Human Services Division. Step Up on Second serves more than 1,800 people annually in the city and surrounding communities. The pre-Thanksgiving meal is a way to help out and "extend the holiday," Pelcyger said. The agency receives a generous amount of food and volunteers on Thanksgiving Day, and he wanted to make sure the school was providing assistance the group could actually use. I called and asked, 'Does this really help? Because we can make these meals any time of year.' Lovallo, who attends the school's presentation with one of his clients (a member of the program), said help is always welcome, though the organization requested freezer-ready options this year. "We love when the community comes together to be a part of something that's helpful," Lovallo said. That's true recovery: integration and interaction.