Police-sponsored chorus reaches out to Inglewood youngsters.

Police departments eager to reach young people have traditionally sponsored athletic leagues or anti-drug programs for kids: a basketball game at a neighborhood court with a few officers as coaches or an in-school lecture by a uniformed police official.

Reuben Taylor, a crime prevention officer at the Inglewood Police Department, thought that wasn’t enough. What about those not interested in sports, he asked. Or the free time kids have after school?

Those thoughts were the seeds for what is now the Inglewood Children’s Theater.

Three afternoons a week, 50 fidgety children, ranging from third-graders to a high school senior, form long lines in a church hall in northern Inglewood. When the music begins and Sherlie Matthews gives the signal, the room fills with police-sponsored song.

“Singing builds their character and takes them off the street,” said Matthews, a singer whom Taylor recruited to head the program. “They meet people who don’t get into trouble and don’t want to. A lot of kids get into drugs because their friends are.”

Matthews knows what it takes to be a singer. During a 10-year career that began in 1965, she sang backup for Elton John, Ella Fitzgerald, the Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys and many others.

But her lead singers now have names like Cherita, Tania, Lunya, Robert, Nyree and Shari. Their hit songs are “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a Christmas medley and some tunes that Matthews composed, complete with dance steps and corresponding arm movements.

The group performed its first concert last month at the True Vine Baptist Church in Inglewood and is now polishing up for a December program with the Inglewood Philharmonic Orchestra.

After that, Matthews is planning to raise funds for tours throughout Southern California, the country--and maybe even the world. One possible stop is Port Antonio, Jamaica, which the Inglewood City Council recently chose as a sister city.

Nyree Carter, a 16-year-old senior at Inglewood High School who was elected president of the group, said the program is a way to learn to sing and help her community at the same time. The young people learn to believe in themselves by performing in front of an audience, she said, and important messages are slipped in during occasional visits from police officers.

Taylor, who began the program, calls it the area’s only police-sponsored youth chorus. He says one of the program’s goals has been realized: “Our kids are now viewing police officers as their friends.”

Matthews has already noticed a difference in the young singers since the program began in September.

“When we first started I had a bunch of timid, scared kids,” she said. “I couldn’t get anyone to volunteer for anything. Now, they have their own officers. Now hands go up before I say what I want. Everyone wants to do everything.”

Cherita Brown, 11, says she has learned how to breathe and hold her notes longer. The secret of singing, she says, is projecting the notes from the stomach not the mouth or nose.

“Before this, I went home and watched TV and did my homework,” said Diane Frausto, 12. “This seems funner.”

Stephanie Slone, 11, says she understands why the Police Department is behind a singing program. “The police want to keep us out of the violence. If you walk on the street, someone’s going to grab you and bury you. It’s dangerous.”