WA Pride offers multiple opportunities every week for students to earn community service hours. Since  the beginning of the school year, Tracy McLaughlin, the advisor for Pride, has sent out emails with an option of helping an elderly man type up his book.

Lisa Hyslip brought the idea to the school for Angelo Filios.  Hyslip met Filios at the Cameron Senior Center for a community service program.

“I volunteer at the food pantry which is located inside the Cameron center. Angelo is very friendly and talkative! He told me about the book he was writing and his dilemma. He needed to have his notebooks transcribed into a word doc in order to have it published. I contacted guidance and that’s where all of you [other students] came into the story,” said Hyslip.

The volunteers are given notebooks, complete with chapters handwritten by Filios, which need to typed out on a document. Hyslip collects the completed works to compile them into a master document.

Currently there are six notebooks in the Pride system, each taken by students who receive community service hours in exchange.

“I was surprised. I didn’t even expect…[people] in high school to take interest in it,” said Filios.

Filios started the book fifteen years ago after reading  an article about the crusades in National Geographic. He became enamored by the historical event.

He states the events brought a universal truth that could be easily understood today.

“The violence and bloodthirsty monsters even then…prove my point that violence ends in disaster. Out of the fourteen crusades that happened, only two of them were successful,” says Filios.

He began to delve into the subject out of curiosity.

“I wrote and [took bullet points] on index cards, about things I wanted to keep learning. And things I’ve already learned. Pretty soon, three cards became a stack of five hundred,” Filios explained.

He moved to Massachusetts two years ago from Florida following the death of a loved one. Folios states the real progress is being made here.

Filios began researching in Florida at a local library, checking out hundreds of books and essays on the topic. However, once he moved to Massachusetts,  a neighbor helped Filios access the Internet for more research.

“Since then, almost 90% of the work came from the computer,” said Filios.

Filios has not finished the book; he has a remaining sixteen chapters that need to be typed, but he continues to write more chapters.

“This won’t fit one book, I’m [going] to end up filling at least two volumes. That’s the plan at least. For now,” Filios said.

Filios is also working on the front and back covers before the book is completed. He suspects the work will take another year, but says that he will use as many years needed to finish this project.

Once it’s finished, Filios plans to publish the books himself. He does not plan to make more than one hundred copies, which will be distributed to a select few.

“I only [want] to give it out to a family members, friends, and just not a lot. Unless people request for it. I’m not sure how to plan that out yet,” says Filios.

Filios left a special message to all the  students who helped make his dream possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7O4Ne5mgF0