Helping Hands : Corporation Employees Join to Construct Some Love and Care for Abused Youngsters

Although the cast assembled in Anaheim Hills last Saturday numbered only in the hundreds, and the goal was not to build Rome in a day, the spectacle was inspiring.

In the morning, there was a virtually empty field. By sunset, Canyon Acres Residential Center for physically and sexually abused children looked like a cross between a dude ranch and summer camp.

While the children were away on a camping trip, 570 volunteers from nearly 40 Orange County corporations gathered at the 4.5-acre treatment center to build two gazebos, a baseball field, a parking lot, a playground, a large horse corral, a brick barbecue, concrete bicycle and trash enclosures; paint several buildings, inside and out; lay irrigation pipes; clear brush and plant trees.

All in a matter of hours.

Estimates of the value of the contributions--goods, services and labor--ranged from $250,000 to more than $350,000. In addition, the city of Anaheim helped by expediting various permits, according to Dan McQuaid, Canyon Acres’ tall, tanned executive director.

The complex volunteer effort was coordinated by Suzanne Huffmon Esber, director of community affairs for the Fluor Corp. and chairman of the daylong project.

Esber was enthusiastic about the “great camaraderie” of the day. “All levels of people are here,” she said. “No one knows what their titles are.”

The work done Saturday was aimed at improving the quality of the existing treatment program and to pave the way for a planned expansion.

“We have a 20-bed capacity and we’re always full,” said McQuaid, a licensed clinical social worker who has been with Canyon Acres since it was founded eight years ago.

“We’re able to realize our potential with this project,” he said as he strolled between buildings the week before the volunteers arrived. In 1980, “I had an idea what it could be. I didn’t think it would take so long. We struggled to survive for several years. Now it’s nice to think what we will be, not wonder if we will be.”

Canyon Acres, a non-sectarian, nonprofit organization, was purchased in 1987 for $760,000, with about 75% of the operating funds coming from state and federal grants.

But no government money is available to make capital improvements on the grounds, which is why McQuaid applied to the Corporate Combined Volunteer Project.

The 4-year-old Corporate Combined Volunteer Project, in cooperation with the Volunteer Centers of Orange County, chooses one project each year to assist in a coordinated way, making use of the varied resources of the local private sector. The application process is open to all nonprofit organizations in the county. Previous projects included daylong efforts at the Santa Ana Zoo, the Discovery Museum and the Bright Light Center for disadvantaged children. More companies and more volunteers have participated each successive year, according to Sandra Wood of ITT Cannon, who handled public relations for the project.

On Saturday, several of the volunteers--who ranged from company presidents to truck drivers--compared the efforts to a Chinese mass work project.

But to McQuaid, 37, the day’s work was more like an old-fashioned American barn-raising, and properly so.

“Child abuse is a community problem,” McQuaid said. “Everybody owns the problem.”

Some of the biggest and best-known corporate names were on hand to help: Disneyland volunteers worked on a new parking lot; the Irvine Co. and Avco dug irrigation ditches; Pacific Financial painted rooms; Unocal and McDonnell Douglas sank corral fence posts; Carl’s Jr. provided lunch.

Most of the corporate teams came to the event dressed in identically colored T-shirts with company names and logos. From the long driveway, the different clusters of color scattered over the grounds made the dusty brown landscape look like a patchwork quilt.

Under the hot sun, many of the shirts were soon darkened with sweat, but the spirits of the volunteers did not appear dampened.

Vicki Boatman of McDonnell Douglas was keeping an eye on her team, which was working with a group from Unocal, when one of her volunteers came up to complain that his hammer was missing.

“The toughest part of this job is keeping the tools straight,” she said with a laugh.

Nancy Dingus, also of Fluor, was working with an electric sander for the first time, smoothing a new piece of playground equipment the company had designed and constructed. In addition to feeling good about her contribution, she said: “I’m proud of the skill I’ve picked up.”

“Usually, I sit behind a desk and write code,” said Henry Bartley of Unisys in Mission Viejo, after spending the morning working on the softball field. “It’s nice to work outside.”

Mike Tierney, the team coordinator for Unisys, found the experience interesting in a lot of ways. A carpenter during the week, he found himself supervising a group composed largely of white-collar workers as they leveled the infield.

“These people are all engineers and paper-pushers,” he said.

Like most of the component projects, the softball field was a cooperative effort. The ground was leveled by the Mission Viejo Co. and 25 tons of clay for the base paths--the same material used at Anaheim Stadium--was donated and delivered by Corona Clay Co. The backstop and another 20 tons of clay were provided by Unisys.

The atmosphere was light and the bantering light-hearted among the volunteers breaking up the earth and marking the base lines.

“This thing really snowballed,” Tierney said. “There’s something about a softball field that everyone wanted to be involved with. “

From the roof of one of the gazebos, a volunteer from Lucky Stores explained that he even volunteered a friend who doesn’t work for the company, a story repeated again and again. Even the neighbors pitched in. Larry Axelrod, who lives nearby, supervised a crew landscaping along Quintana Avenue, outside the grounds of Canyon Acres.

Another Lucky employee, Mike Allison, who works in the advertising department, said he was drawn to Canyon Acres after being asked to design the company’s T-shirts and hats.

“It sounded like a worthwhile project,” he said, taking a break from working on a gazebo.

Among the 22 other Lucky volunteers was Bill Yingling, president of Lucky Stores’ Southern California region, which stretches from San Luis Obispo to the Mexican border.

Yingling said he liked the corporate approach to dealing with problems.

“It allows us to help the community and make a contribution, and to feel good about ourselves. This is great.”

By mid-afternoon, McQuaid was looking harried but happy, his high-tech headset--loaned by the Fluor Corp.--still crackling as he talked about his program. The father of two explained that the private facility cares for 20 children who are referred from Orangewood Children’s Home. The 10 girls and 10 boys, ages 5 to 12, remain at Canyon Acres for an average of a year and a half, some sleeping in the three-story ranch house, the rest in the single-story bunk house, still nicknamed “the barn.”

“Orangewood is emergency first-aid,” he said. “We are going to do the surgery here,” helping them do the long-term adjustment.

McQuaid described the facility as a “psychiatric model residential treatment center,” pointing out that the facility and the program were designed to be a “safe haven” for youngsters with severe emotional behavioral problems. Ultimately, he said, there are plans to build two more cottages, which would enable Canyon Acres to treat 30 youngsters at a time and have more room for offices.

Canyon Acres focuses on the 5 to 12 age group, McQuaid said, because those molested before adolescence can “build a strong, positive identification with caring adults in our program,” despite what has been done to them.

“We have some pretty troubled youngsters,” he said. Some “are very isolated or depressed and withdrawn” when they arrive. “Our children here are sexually aggressive, self-destructive and physically aggressive,” he said, requiring 24-hour supervision.

Two children share each of the tidy rooms, with stuffed toys piled on beds. There is a poster of Mr. Rogers in one room and lots of the children’s artwork on many of the walls.

In one room, McQuaid points out the sad artwork of one child, a triangular self-representation and some printed lines by the girl explaining that she was pretty until she was molested and now she is ugly, a typical reaction to the experience.

McQuaid said that the children need structure and predictability in their lives, so they can expect that their needs will be met, and that they will be safe from adults and other children.

“We work with the families intensely here,” he said. “I think it’s really important.”

Of the children who leave, one-third are “reunited with their strengthened family,” one-third enter long-term foster care, and one-third go into small group houses or adoptive homes.

Not every treatment is successful, McQuaid said. Earlier this year, the staff had to discharge a child with severe emotional problems. She had been sexually molested from age 3 to 8, was hallucinating and was put in a psychiatric hospital.

All of the children leave the grounds each day to attend classes within the Orange Unified School District, some in a special program, others are in special education classes and regular classes.

Filling out the application for Saturday’s improvements early last fall, McQuaid said, was like filling out a wish list and, much to his surprise, the corporate project “bought the entire wish list” when they chose Canyon Acres in mid-November.

Countless meetings followed the selection, concentrating on making the best use of the varied resources and the volunteers for the main work day. Everything, down to scheduling shifts for lunch, was mapped out.

The physical preparations--apart from the usual 10 months of planning--began well before last Saturday, and the volunteer efforts will continue after, McQuaid said.

There was a preliminary workday on April 30, and on May 11, a GTE team with a center-mount truck was using an augur bit to put holes 3 feet into the ground, 50 of them in all, to be ready for trees and an entrance fence.

On June 24, Associated General Contractors in Orange County will hold a casino night for Canyon Acres at the Marriott Hotel in Newport Beach.

By volunteering to help improve Canyon Acres, McQuaid said, the individuals and corporations become “part of the solution” and thus “own a part of our program for child abuse.”

“I get 570 best friends” from this, he said. “Those people will help us in the future, too. . . . You start talking about ‘our project’ and you start putting your sweat into it and it’s something else” other than just money.

When the children returned from their camping trip on Sunday, they were surprised and delighted by the changes, McQuaid said, and “anxious to try out things.”

Despite everyone’s best efforts, not all of the projects were completed last Saturday. There were still scattered piles of dirt and wood. Not all of the irrigation had been finished, a necessary step before the softball field could be seeded.

By late this past week, a lone Lucky volunteer was nailing shingles on the gazebos, and some Fluor workers were due back today to finish painting the playground equipment. The swings, on order, should arrive by June 1, McQuaid said, and the softball field should be landscaped and ready for the first game by July 4.

“I think it was a fun day,” McQuaid said, looking back, “a day I’ll always remember. It’s not often you can spend a day with 500 people and have so much fun.”

Staff Writer John Needham contributed to this article.