About 300 parents and students from Roosevelt High School, Mendez Learning Center and Hollenbeck Middle School attended the 3rd Annual Parent Conference at Mendez Learning Center High School Saturday morning. 

Mayor Villaraigosa showed up at noon and greeted the crowd that was waiting in line for lunch. Many took out their phones and had their pictures taken with the mayor. 

Mayor Villaraigosa talked to families and students in Spanish, encouraging parents to be well-informed and play an active role in their children’s academic work. He also asked students to be thankful for their parents’ hard work. 

The talk was carried in a light-hearted and relaxed manner with the audience sitting on six or seven lunch tables, breaking into cheers, applause and laughter from time to time. 

The event culminated in a raffle when a dozen prizes, including dictionaries, calculators, backpacks, Kindles and a notebook computer were given out. 

Mayor Villaraigosa drew a blue slip of paper each time from a cart box. Shortly after each number was read, there was a moment of silence before someone coming up to claim the prize and the crowd breaking into cheers and shouts of ‘Bravo’. 

The biggest prize of the raffle-a black Acer Aspire One notebook computer-went to Orlando Martinez, 18, a senior at Mendez Learning Center.

“I was going to leave in a little bit but I started volunteering and then once I stopped volunteering they called up my name. It’s really exciting,” he said.

Martinez is in AP classes and he said he will use it to do homework. 

Reach Gracie Zheng here.