Church Group to Fight Crime

Representatives of more than 40 churches in the northeast San Fernando Valley announced plans Sunday to form a community-based volunteer group to combat social problems such as drugs and gang activity.

The announcement was made at a meeting of the Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley attended by more than 200 people, including representatives from several homeowner groups, at First United Methodist Church of Pacoima. Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden delivered a brief speech supporting the group’s effort.

Fred Taylor, assistant to the president of the group, said the organization wants to reassert the black church’s historical importance and effectiveness in dealing with a number of social ills, including the proliferation of drugs, gang activity and other crime in northeast Valley communities.

Taylor said the organization, known as the Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley, will establish a non-religious group, to be named Focus 90, to address these issues.

He said the group will provide counseling, drug- and alcohol-treatment programs and financial support to homeless youngsters or those who might be without proper family support. The group also will be involved in neighborhood cleanup programs in an effort to restore community pride, and will work closely with the Los Angeles Police Deparment to provide safer neighborhoods, Taylor said.

He said the group’s main goal will be to re-establish the church’s leadership role in the community, something he said was lost with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. King’s birthday is being celebrated today as a national holiday.

“We want to try and create that type of leadership again, in a small way, in the northeast Valley,” Taylor said, adding that he hoped that social programs established by the fellowship would spread across the country.

During the ceremony Sunday, the Rev. James V. Lyles, pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Pacoima, was installed as president of the fellowship. Lyles was elected to the post two months ago.