Year-End Update: Revisiting Scenes and People From 1986 View Stories : Young Do-Gooders

View has revisited some of the people and places it reported on in 1986 to update their stories. Among them:

--A shelter for the homeless that was itself homeless.

--An author who had new ideas about how to market and promote his book.

--The campaign to save Nancy Reagan’s 1981 inaugural gown, which is stretching under the weight of its bugle beads.

Charity groups headed by young professionals are alive and well and raking in money.

In May, View profiled several charities, groups started by men and women in their 20s and 30s to attract their peers to the world of fund-raising.

Concern II was founded by Derek Alpert, director of music development for A&M; Records, to raise money for cancer research. An offshoot of the senior group Concern, this year Concern II has raised $200,000, twice as much as the previous year. Some 100 new members have joined in the last six months, bringing the total to 600.

“We’ve done one thing we’re very proud of,” said Alpert, president of the group. “We’re opening a branch in Orange County. People out there felt neglected.”

Friends for Life, which funds the pediatric intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has also increased its membership and budget. Said chairman Jeff Lapin, secretary and corporate counsel of Hotel Investors Trust in Woodland Hills, the group’s last casino party raised $48,000. Membership this year has increased to 85, up from 60 last year. And Friends for Life still charges no dues to its members, but does require them to spend time in the intensive care unit.

“We have decided to set up a formalized structure for the group,” he added. “We were very ad hoc in past years. And we also plan to have more than one major event each year, as well as get more people involved. There are these 30-year-old professionals making $60,000 to $80,000 a year, and I want to make them realize that there are opportunities to give.”

The Music Center’s two young-age support groups, Music Center Connections and In the Wings, were founded not to raise money but to drum up audience support for the center’s theaters and resident groups. The theory was that members would eventually donate volunteer time and money.

That has already happened with Connections, according to co-chairman Rick Caruso, a Los Angeles attorney. “We had people working at WinterFest in some of the booths,” he said, “and at the Mercado (last summer). We haven’t asked people for contributions yet, but next year we might put on events to raise money for something like bringing inner-city and underprivileged kids to the Music Center. We’ve had some discussions about it, and everyone is very supportive.”

In the Wings has no plans to change its structure; the group continues to offer “sampler series” tickets to performances and get-togethers for members. “It isn’t an activist volunteer organization,” said outgoing president Frank Hobbs, an attorney. “I think this is a unique vehicle for people in the yuppie crowd to have some meaningful contact and provide support to the Music Center without committing a great amount of time. I think this fills a niche.”