Beacon of Hope : Volunteers Help Community Dig Itself Out of a Quake

Since early May, a motley construction crew of Bay Area residents--from plumbers to musicians to computer specialists--has trekked to this farming town south of Santa Cruz to build a $1-million beacon of hope for a community hard-hit by last October’s earthquake.

Just a couple of blocks from a flattened stretch of the predominantly Latino town’s main drag, the San Francisco-area volunteers are helping local residents build a 6,400-square-foot community center.

When it opens Saturday, the structure will provide more than just a cultural hub for the city, which sustained damages of $60 million in the quake and also will lose 410 jobs when one of the area’s largest employers relocates some operations next year.

Organizers of the effort hope the new center also will spark a bit of a renaissance in this city of 30,000.

“We were interested in helping shift the attitude of the community from building from ground zero to looking forward,” said Nancy Handelman, director of the Oakland-based Sterling Community Service Foundation, which organized the nine-week project. “We wanted to show Watsonville that it wasn’t alone.”

Community leaders and residents who have contributed time to the project said the effort has paid off.

“This is incredible, the outpouring of support in terms of time, energy, blood, sweat and tears,” said Delilah Valadez, a Watsonville Volunteer Center activist who helps out weekends at the city-donated site. “We haven’t seen anything like this since the earthquake, or before it. This shows what can be done with hard work, vision and teamwork.”

The center, to be dedicated Saturday, will give Watsonville residents an inexpensive place to hold receptions, ethnic dances, English classes and retraining sessions for some of the workers who are losing their jobs.

Pillsbury/Green Giant Co., one of the area’s largest employers, announced in April it would lay off 410 of its 550 peak-season workers by 1991 when it moves its cauliflower- and broccoli-freezing operations to Mexico and Ohio.

Coming in the aftermath of the quake, the prospect of unemployment has been dispiriting for many.

“All this has really wracked people who were already disadvantaged,” said one volunteer, Cecile Mills, a computer technician for a bilingual community newspaper, El Andar.

“Sometimes I just want to pull my hair out and move to Portland.”

A company spokesman said Pillsbury/Green Giant is making the move for economic reasons. He said the company is negotiating a severance package with the union, and also will take steps to retrain workers.

“It certainly won’t eliminate the fact that some people are losing their jobs, but hopefully we can make the transition a little easier,” said Duane Larson, plant manager.

The Sterling Community Service Foundation’s leaders and volunteers said their main goal is to build a spirit of cooperation and hope, something that will go beyond the immediate benefits provided by the community center, located in Marinovich Park on 2nd Street.

The foundation originally drew up plans to build the structure as a schoolhouse in earthquake-ravaged Soviet Armenia. But when the 1989 temblor hit the Bay Area, Sterling officials decided to use their resources closer to home. The group has spent $75,000 on building materials. Labor and other building materials were donated. The city will own the center.

Watsonville qualifies for about $4 million in federal and state disaster aid, and could receive more once officials complete formal reports on the earthquake damage. So far, the city has received about $2 million in government relief, said Terry Stigall, Watsonville finance director.

So, efforts to mop up quake-related destruction in the city--estimated by Stigall to be about $60 million--have fallen mostly to local groups with limited resources.

The city has received $1 million in outside relief donations, which local government officials have channeled largely to low-income homeowners through house reconstruction grants. In a separate project, a local interdenominational relief group has been rebuilding some of the 250 houses knocked off their foundations, with homeowners paying only for the cost of materials.

The Sterling project has also funneled help from more affluent areas to the north, bringing together members of the farming community and residents of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz and elsewhere. An average of 130 or more volunteers have shown up at the site every Saturday and Sunday to help out.

“What I do for a living is not that fulfilling in a spiritual sense,” said Matt Lyons, 29, a computer systems analyst from Fremont. “This gives me a chance to give something back. It’s a chance to stand for something.”

On weekend work days, the one-story community center structure has been abuzz with activity. A roving safety crew barks commands, encouragement and jokes to small teams of volunteers--including some construction industry professionals--as they go about tasks as varied as hanging doors, installing insulation and painting walls.

For the construction workers who leave their weekday jobs only to drive 90 miles and ply their trade for free on the weekend, the project offers a reward not found on every project, said Harvey Rosen, 48, a Berkeley electrical contractor who acted as the community center project manager on a recent work day.

“When you’re out on a regular construction site, that building doesn’t represent anything,” Rosen said. “This building represents the community. This building represents people.

“To me,” he said, “this is a miracle.”

It also has a practical payoff. “It’s going to fill a need that’s been here for as long as I’ve lived in Watsonville,” said Valadez, a 25-year resident.

Already, the street looks nicer, residents said. The basketball court that used to sprawl across the community center site is gone. So are the graffiti and the crowd of street gang members who used to hang out there. The house next door has a fresh coat of ocean-blue paint. The people who live there said they painted it so their home would look as nice as the new center.

Still, when the dedication ceremony is over, a lot of work will remain to be done in Watsonville.

Few are more aware of that than project volunteer Herman Goon.

Until last year, Goon, 65, owned a small dry goods store and a little house, each about two blocks from the nearly completed community center. He lost everything in the quake--store, inventory, house. His insurance covered nothing.

Now, pushed into early retirement by the catastrophe, Goon shows up bright and early on weekend mornings to help build the center in his old neighborhood.

When his fellow volunteers pack up and leave, the town’s problems--unemployment, a downtown partly in ruins--will remain, he said. It will be a battle to keep alive the community spirit inspired by the community center project.

“Watsonville will be a little while before it can build up,” Goon said. “We’ve got to solve the problems ourselves now.”