Need a truly inspirational story? Seven-year-old Jay Leventhal of Pennsylvania wrote CSI to ask for suggestions of how to "save whales". After several suggestions from CSI President Bill Rossiter, Jay wrote back to describe his Whale-a-thon, a run/walk-a-thon which enabled him to raise six hundred dollars. After further consultation with Bill, Jay decided to give the money to the Whale Disentanglement Team from the Center for Coastal Studies ( http://www.coastalstudies.org).

In June Jay and his Mom drove from Pennsylvania to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to deliver Jay's check to the Center, and have some fun. With a small hero's welcome he met many of the Center's dedicated people, learned all about the rescue gear from Dr. "Stormy" Mayo, one of the key people on the core disentanglement team, and went on a world famous Dolphin Fleet whale watch.

"Dear Bill, My mom and I had tons of fun and I saw a lot of of great whales. Thank you also for recommending to send the money to the Center for Coastal studies. I saw three Fin Whales and 5 Humpback Whales. One whale kept on breaching. A few other whales put their backs up and then their flukes and then dove down deep. Peter the scientist on the boat let me stand on the front highest level on the ship for the whole ride. It was so much fun. Stormy Mayo showed me baleen from Staccato. Then he explained to us his therie on why right whales are disappearing. He explained his therie about why the whales aren't having babies. He also showed me whale food and let me keep some. We looked at the whale food under a microscope. Stormy also showed me his files on the 1200 Humpback whales that they are tracking. I really liked my visit. The people at the Center were really nice to. Your friend Peter Borelli [Executive Director] was very nice too. I took a picture with Stormy and Peter when I gave them the check.

Also, my mom took some great pictures of the Humpbacks breaching. In one of them, you can really see the white markings on the flukes. She is going to blow it up for me and put it on my wall. I saw tons of seagulls during the whale watch and Peter [Peter Trull, Center scientist and whale watch naturalist] knew tons about whales and seagulls. Thank you again. My mom and I had so much fun. I will never forget our trip. I told her we should plan to go back every year. Your friend, Jay"