Benefit
Saturday Will Help PicoYouth Center Finish New Home |
By Lookout Staff
June 2 -- Hoping to turn the sound of sawing and hammering
into music, the Pico Youth and Family Center will host its 1st Hope
& Unity Awards Banquet Saturday to raise funds to finish renovating
its new home and recording studio.
Just 200 feet from the entrance to Santa Monica High School, the
new facility will offer counseling, tutoring, internet access, case
management, job readiness and leadership development to more than
200 Santa Monica youth ages 16 to 24.
The benefit Saturday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Saint Anne's Catholic
Church will help the center wrap up construction and buy new equipment
for its state-of-the-art studio, center officials said.
"Our plan is to create a Digital Dream Center where youth
have access to equipment for recording, film making and web page/graphic
design,” said Oscar de la Torre, the center’s executive
director and founder. “But we need to raise money to make
this vision possible."
The center is in the process of developing a community benefits
agreement with Lionsgate to create job training and employment opportunities
for local youth, de la Torre said.
“Funds raised from the Hope & Unity Awards Banquet is
the first step of many to achieve the goal of providing a premier
after school program for Santa Monica youth,” said de la Torre,
who is president of the School Board.
The center ended up at its current location at 711 Pico Boulevard
seven months ago, after the agency that gives at risk youth an alternative
to hanging out on the streets found itself on the street.
The center lost the lease for the space it had been renting since
its inception in 2001 after staff and volunteers spent $40,000 transforming
the 1,900-square-foot former warehouse storage area into a vibrant
house of art, education and music.
The new space is not only a block closer to the high school, it
is also bigger at 2,500 square feet and comes with a 12-year lease
accompanied by a purchase option, de la Torre said.
The center, which gets $304,000 a year in City founding, received
a $50,000 one-time grant from the City of Santa Monica to put in
new floors, paint the walls and set up a recording studio, staff
offices and conference rooms, de la Torre said.
The benefit, which acknowledges community leaders “who have
shown a commitment to bringing hope to the lives of our youth,”
will help the center raise the $75,000 it needs to finish the renovation
and buy equipment, de la Torre said.
Those being recognized are Council member Kevin McKeown, Police
Chief Tim Jackman, Santa Monica College Professor Christopher Jimenez
y West, Santa Monica High School Teacher Carmen Paul and Shirley
Compton Sugars, asssistant principal at John Adams Middle School.
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