CHILDREN’S BILINGUAL THEATER FUND

“We’re a family store, so we like to return the support of the families in the communities we serve,” said Larry Tessler.

He is a vice president of Mervyn’s Stores. Mervyn’s is making it possible, beginning this fall, for Los Angeles to have a professional bilingual theater for children--a reflection of the city’s growing Latino population.

“We responded to a challenge that the Dayton Hudson Foundation sent out to its operating companies, to solicit arts programming proposals for the foundation’s new Arts and Children Initiative,” continued Tessler, one of the guests Thursday at a salute to Mervyn’s at City Hall.

According to Tessler, Mervyn’s actively seeks ways to bring the arts to children, sending out scouts nationwide. Aware of the decrease in federal resources for arts programming, Tessler said that Mervyn’s through its own giving is hoping “to entice other corporations to do the same.”

The timing of Mervyn’s search was perfect. Two years ago, L.A. School Board member Larry Gonzales approached the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, an established bilingual theater company based in Lincoln Heights, to express his concern about the sparsity of in-school cultural programming for Hispanic children. “Out of a total student body of 565,000, 53% are Hispanic,” Gonzales explained at Thursday’s gathering. “It’s important for our young people to feel good about who they are and where they come from.” The Bilingual Foundation began looking for support for such a project. Enter Mervyn’s.

With a seed grant from Mervyn’s and additional aid from Erwin Binder, KTLA, Seaver’s Institute and the Union Bank Foundation, the Bilingual Foundation created a pilot project, an original musical play co-written by Carmen Zapata and Estela Scarlata, that toured 22 L.A. city schools last spring. As a result of the project’s success, the Bilingual Foundation was one of 5 out of 71 proposals chosen by Mervyn’s.

Thus was born Teatro para los Ninos.

The $123,000 grant, to be distributed over a three-year period, will enable the Teatro para los Ninos to tour Los Angeles city and county schools through the district’s Intergroup Cultural Awareness Project, reach Los Angeles community centers and in 1988 open a permanent theater for children at its home location.

Plaques and congratulations were exchanged at Thursday’s reception, which was sponsored by Mayor Tom Bradley and Leo Trujillo, board chairman of the Bilingual Foundation. The mood was optimistic.

“Our Hispanic kids are so creative and they haven’t had the opportunity to be exposed to the arts. Now they’ll be able to share their culture and know that they’re a people to be proud of,” said Deputy Mayor Grace Montanez Davis, representing Mayor Bradley.

Trujillo’s representative, Xavier Aguilera, vice chairman of the Bilingual Foundation board, saluted Mervyn’s for its “outstanding contribution to the children of Los Angeles.”

Carmen Zapata, the Bilingual Foundation’s president, explained that Teatro para los Ninos will be creating original plays, aimed at presenting young children with messages of self-worth and an awareness of the world around them.

Striking a solemn note amid the festivities, Zapata concluded: “Our children are the future. Unless we nourish them, unless we encourage them, unless we educate them and help them realize their potential, there is no future.”