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By Anita Varghese
Special to The Lookout
June 27 -- The board of directors of the Pico Youth
and Family Center is moving full-speed ahead with a new capital
campaign to purchase a permanent, bigger and better home after
the center’s landlord chose not to renew an annual lease.
But it may not be easy to match the 1,900-square-foot former
warehouse storage area at 828 Pico Boulevard the center has
occupied since it began in 2001.
“Where can we go?” wondered Michael Jackson,
the center’s case manager. “Would we end up having
to do with less space?”
Besides, the current site, which the center must vacate by
the end of September, is a convenient spot for the local youth
it draws.
“Right here is an accessible spot,” Jackson said.
“We are close to John Adams Middle School and Santa
Monica High School, we are near Virginia Avenue Park and we
are on the Big Blue Bus line 7.”
The storefron near Lincoln Boulevard has also been shaped
by the center’s staff and volunteers. They renovated
the open space, adding walls for computer labs and a recording
studio, while the youth it serves decorated it with graffiti-style
artwork.
School Board member Oscar de la Torre, the center’s
executive director, plans to form an executive capital campaign
committee, which would apply for foundation grants, find major
benefactors and host fundraising youth award dinners.
“As long as we rent, we will always face the threat
of dislocation,” de la Torre said. “We always
think about the outpouring of compliments we have received
from the community, which helps us carry on in our attempts
to find a more outstanding facility than the one we have now.”
De la Torre spent the past few weeks scouring Santa Monica’s
Pico Neighborhood looking for a decent site for the nonprofit
center and is zeroing in on “two locations of particular
interest.” He is confident the capital campaign will
be fruitful.
The center -- which began as a collaboration of different
organizations working out of Virginia Avenue Park -- serves
between 130 and 200 youth, who sign up for free memberships.
Only members can use the center, and anyone between the ages
of 16 and 24 can join if they live, work or go to school in
Santa Monica.
Center services include community events, a youth leadership
council, tutoring in any subject, social services, psychological
counseling, music studio sessions and computer labs. The center
has partnerships with Saint Johns Medical Center, UCLA and
other public and private nonprofit entities.
“Every youth is welcomed here, whether they are at
risk or not,” said Jackson, who was born and raised
in the Pico Neighborhood and has degrees in sociology and
political science from Washington State University. “For
some, this place is their second home. For others, they feel
like this is their first or only home.”
“There is a constant battle between what the center
is perceived as and what it actually is,” Jackson said.
“There are many different types of youth who come here,
not just those who used to be affiliated with gangs.
“If you have groups of people who are marginalized
such as at-risk youth or gang-affiliated youth, community
organizations like us who serve those groups end up being
marginalized.”
Alex Aldana, the center’s community organizer and event
coordinator, believes the Pico Neighborhood -- which has a
high concentration of Spanish-speaking families -- is much
different than other parts of the city.
“With Santa Monica being a beach community and having
things like the pier, every young person feels privileged
in a lot of ways,” Aldana said. “But at the same
time, we have youth from the Pico Neighborhood getting nothing
at home to help them be successful in school or in life.”
The Pico Youth and Family Center, Aldana said, can reach
out to youth before they begin to struggle in school, with
the law or with finances.
Aldana said his father, who worked on a farm, and his mother,
who worked in a factory, never taught him some of the lessons
he learned as a youth member at the center, lessons that enabled
him to deal with the physical limitations and emotional consequences
of being born with cerebral palsy.
“How parents raise their children in other parts of
the city is different from how parents in the Pico Neighborhood
raise their children,” Aldana said. “Parents here
want their children to succeed, but there are language barriers
and some things such as spending hours in a library are just
not embedded in their minds if they come from different countries
or different cultures.”
The City, the School District and other community organizations
provide free services for the youth population, but the Pico
Youth and Family Center provides each youth with individual
and specialized attention, Aldana said.
For some, such as lifelong Pico Neighborhood resident Julian
Ayala, who was once at risk for not graduating with the Santa
Monica High School Class of 2008, the center is the only organization
that has sparked an interest in education.
Ayala lost interest in school after his brother-in-law, Hector
Bonilla, was murdered in double homicide when he tried to
help a friend at a private party at the local Moose Lodge
two years ago.
“Hector was like a brother to Julian, not a brother-in-law,”
de la Torre said. “His death and the way he died, in
an act of gang violence, left Julian with little interest
in school or good hobbies.
“After we worked with him at the Pico Youth and Family
Center, he is now passing all of his classes and is destined
for college.”
Ayala’s interest was picqued by the center’s
most popular service -- the recording studio. He now hopes
to enroll as a music major at Santa Monica College next year
and pursue a rap/hip hop career.
“We like to call him and others who love our recording
studio hip hopheads,” de la Torre said. “Julian
is also working on a few songs for the studio’s soon-to-be-released
second compilation album.
“His success is the result of a dedicated group of
caring and intelligent adults who only want the best quality
of life for Pico Neighborhood youth.”
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