Lotto Win Keeps Strapped Anti-Gang Agency on Feet

By the end of last month, Chilton Alphonse had come to the depressing conclusion that it was only a matter of time before he would have to close his financially hobbled anti-gang agency.

The Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation, based in South-Central Los Angeles, owed $60,000 in debts, including $25,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, and was so broke that Alphonse hadn’t been able to pay himself in weeks. Most of his staff had had their schedules cut in half and city officials had informed him that, because of the red ink, the agency could forget about receiving a $42,500 city grant that had been scheduled to arrive April 1.

Then, like some fabled fairy godmother, Lady Luck stepped in.

Lady Lotto Luck, that is.

This week, Alphonse picked up a check for about $185,000 from the California State Lottery, his after-taxes take for choosing five of the six numbers--2, 10, 13, 14, 21,--and the bonus number--40--in a Lotto game on April 7.

The money has allowed Alphonse, over the last three days, not only to retire all of his personal debts, but also to wipe out the foundation’s, to begin plans for renovating its three-building complex on Crenshaw Boulevard and to sock away $75,000 for a long-dreamed-of expansion of the tiny, nonprofit agency.

In all so far he has given the agency $50,000 and loaned it $10,000.

The win--$229,979 before the federal tax man got his share--came five days after Alphonse unsuccessfully appealed to county supervisors for help for the foundation and two days before he received notice that he was being evicted from his apartment for not paying rent.

“I had been praying, but I wasn’t praying to hit the lottery,” a beaming Alphonse said Thursday. “This is truly a blessing from God.”

Alphonse was in the news last month when he called a press conference to announce that the agency was in serious trouble. He took his case first to City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and then to Councilman Nate Holden.

The news of the Lotto win elated Holden, who had been trying to help Alphonse get the agency on its feet.

“Can you believe that? The Lord was on his side,” Holden exclaimed. “The heavens opened up and gave him a helping hand.”

Just before the lottery win, Holden had used his influence to get a total of $8,000 in grants from Atlantic Richfield Co. and Kaiser Permanente. In addition, Atlantic Richfield loaned one of its financial consultants to the agency and arranged for professional grant writers to work with Alphonse.

The corporate gifts and a $4,000 emergency loan from Danny Bakewell, executive director of the social services organization Brotherhood Crusade, were greatly needed and appreciated, Alphonse said, but that money fell far short of what his agency needed to survive long term.

The agency operates a six-person group home and an alternative school for youth at risk of gang involvement. It serves 500 youngsters annually and just got by last year with a $60,000 grant from the city, $13,000 from the Brotherhood Crusade and $33,000 from the discretionary fund of county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, Alphonse said.

The latest crisis began at the end of last year, he said, after the federal government ended a city-administered program that had paid the program’s monthly rent of $4,600. That was followed by the city’s decision to withhold the $42,500.

Holden said money woes are not uncommon among small nonprofit community-based agencies, particularly those that serve a predominantly black clientele.

“Those organizations always have shortfalls because they never get enough money in the first place, and are the first to be cut,” Holden said.

But Alphonse wasn’t concerned about money on Thursday. Instead, he was one big, confident grin.

“The foundation will go on,” he promised. “Nothing will stop us.”