Concierges Adopt Abused Children

Within reason, a hotel concierge will get you anything you want. Just like a parent. Within reason, a concierge will smooth your ruffled feathers, locate what you’re looking for, offer guidance, generally take care of you. Just like a parent.

A concierge would never, never turn on a petitioner. Most parents don’t either. Some do, though, and it somehow seems fitting that the Los Angeles Concierge Assn. has adopted as its favorite beneficiary the L.A. Police Department’s Child-Abuse Unit.

The program is chronically short of personnel, says Sandra Abrantes, Biltmore Hotel concierge. Money is needed to train more officers to deal with abused kids. Computers, invaluable for keeping track of the abused, have terminals but not screens. Stuffed animals are always in short supply.

Stuffed animals? “When the police get a report that a child is being abused,” Abrantes says, “they go in and investigate. Pending a court decision, the child must be removed from the home, and brought to a Police Department unit. An officer tries to communicate, to determine the guilty, but the child, understandably, can’t relate to an adult. Give the child a stuffed animal, though, and a trained officer can communicate through the toy. It breaks down the barriers.”

Last year, at their annual holiday gala, the concierges collected 600 stuffed toys and $1,000. This year’s bash netted 800 toys and $2,000, “plus large donations from L.A. Taxi, Supershuttle and others we deal with,” Abrantes says. “We use the community to serve our guests,” she adds, “and we like to give a little something back.”