Reaping Rewards of the Will to Act : Citizen Activists Say Involvement Transforms Their Lives

Lupe Lopez knew that, by herself, she could not stop the drug dealing in her Canoga Park neighborhood. Neither could she make City Hall politicians listen to her complaints about potholes or unsightly abandoned cars.

But the 61-year-old grandmother of four said she stopped feeling powerless last year when she joined VOICE, Valley Organized in Community Efforts, an organization made up of members of 15 San Fernando Valley churches and synagogues.

“I didn’t know we could do something before,” said Lopez, a receptionist at a Canoga Park youth center. “I found out that if we stand together with certain values, we can do something to change the things around us.”

VOICE has won a few victories since its founding at a boisterous meeting attended by 1,200 people in November. San Fernando city officials agreed in April to spruce up a neglected park and increase police patrols. Earlier this year, Los Angeles city officials agreed to a VOICE request and established a toll-free number for reporting abandoned cars for removal.

Life Changes

But beyond the group’s political accomplishments, Lopez and other members say the organization has quietly and unexpectedly transformed their lives.

Lopez and other members of the group said that before VOICE was formed, they were content to help with prayer meetings and catechism classes. Now, they say, they are part-time community activists who dedicate much of their non-working lives to group meetings and public hearings, where they speak before--and sometimes confront--politicians and bureaucrats.

Lopez attends weekly meetings of VOICE’s media committee, which she said is preparing for an anti-graffiti campaign expected to be launched this fall. “I’ve gone to so many meetings I have to look at this to remember what we’ve done,” she said, leafing through a notebook filled with newspaper clippings, mimeographed flyers and pamphlets.

In fact, practically all of those pulled into VOICE’s ranks--including accountants, priests and insurance company employees--say they are frustrated with government inaction on social problems, such as drug abuse in their neighborhoods.

“I want my streets back,” said Dennis Garvey, 41, a VOICE member and Reseda resident. “I don’t want these little hoodlums and beeper-carrying drug dealers running me off when I drive into a supermarket parking lot.”

Speaking Out

Garvey, an accountant with a Santa Monica aviation company, joined VOICE last year when the pastor at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Reseda told him about the then-fledgling organization. Since then, Garvey has spoken in favor of gun control before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and has met with Robert Yates, the Los Angeles city parking administrator, to complain about abandoned vehicles on Valley streets.

Last month, Garvey became one of nine VOICE members to attend 10 days of leadership training organized by the Industrial Areas Foundation, a nonprofit organization of professional community organizers that helped set up VOICE.

The training was “one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” said Garvey, who met community activists from Philadelphia, South-Central Los Angeles and the South Bronx of New York City at the sessions.

A student leader at San Jose City College in the late 1960s, Garvey was perhaps more prepared than most for his role as a neighborhood activist. For others, learning the ropes of community organizing and public speaking has been more difficult.

Just Beginning

Brother Peter Vasquez of Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima also took the 10-day training course but said he is still reluctant about taking a leadership role. “I’m just beginning,” he said. “I’m better at talking to people one-to-one. When it comes to a big crowd, I’m not the greatest. But I hope I will evolve into that.”

Vasquez, 50, said he joined VOICE because he was concerned about graffiti and the physical deterioration of the East Valley neighborhood that surrounds his church.

Sister Carmel Somers, a nun and full-time organizer for VOICE, said those who join the group are asked to become leaders. “Anyone who is active in the organization is called a leader,” she said. “Making someone a leader is a form of recognition. When people begin to get recognition, they begin to act differently. They begin to feel they can change things.”

Somers said the group’s philosophy is inspired by the late Saul Alinsky, a community organizer whose book “Rules for Radicals” envisioned a political movement in which each member would be given an equal role.

Thus, when VOICE addressed state Senate and Assembly committees this spring in support of a bill that would ban assault weapons, it was not only VOICE organizers who spoke. “People who are timid and shy and don’t want to come to the microphone, we push them a little,” Somers said.

Instrumental Testimony

Lynn Montgomery, an aide to Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), said the testimony of VOICE members before the committees was instrumental in passage of the ban on assault weapons.

“It’s certainly an organization we listen to,” she said. “We’ve worked with them on a number of issues, the most recent being the assault weapons bill. They were very effective on that.”

Montgomery said VOICE members have also worked in support of a school construction bill sponsored by Roos.

Improved street maintenance and police response times are among the issues concerning VOICE member Javier Cabrera, 32, an insurance company representative. Cabrera said he has organized house meetings on the issues with his Canoga Park neighbors.

He said he was inspired by the spirited formation meeting of the organization.

“For me, it was really uplifting,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see people from Encino, Woodland Hills and Tarzana all with the same concerns.”

Lopez said she and her VOICE members have been able to claim a few victories since that first meeting, including some badly needed street maintenance in her Canoga Park neighborhood.

“There have been some good things,” she said. “The potholes have been repaired. Not all of them, but a lot of them.”