19 Unsung Heroes Win ‘Good Neighbor’ Awards : Community activism: A crime fighter got his street cleaned up, but paid a high price. Assemblyman Katz hopes the prizes inspire others.

Efrem Olvera has paid a high price for caring.

Fed up with drug dealers and prostitution, Olvera launched a campaign to clean up his Pacoima neighborhood three years ago. But then his car was torched, his house plastered with graffiti and his life and that of this family threatened.

“They tried to stop me, to make me afraid,” Olvera said.

Instead of giving up, Olvera formed the Haddon-Mercer Residents’ Assn., and began holding weekly meetings in his house. He organized marches in coordination with the police and other agencies and eventually things began to change.

“Today, it’s a cleaner street,” said the 64-year-old Olvera, who now works with Community Youth Gang Services, an anti-gang agency.

Because of his efforts, Olvera was one of 19 Valley residents chosen to receive a “Good Neighbor of the Year” award in a ceremony Saturday at the Odyssey Restaurant in Mission Hills.

The Good Neighbor awards are co-sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Southern California Region; and the North Valley YWCA in San Fernando. “They care . . .” Katz said of the recipients. “And they’re stubborn. They’re not going to let negative attitudes stop them from making a difference.”

In addition to the individual awards, El Proyecto Del Barrio received a $25,000 “Good Neighbor Grant” from Kaiser Permanente.

El Proyecto was started more than 20 years ago as a program to help drug addicts. Since then, it has evolved into a comprehensive employment program and a medical clinic that mostly serves undocumented workers, the uninsured and “the people of last resort,” said the group’s director, Corinne Sanchez.

The grant will help fund preventive health-care services for Latinas, Sanchez said.

Katz started the awards program last year to recognize “the unsung heroes of our neighborhood, the people who, with very little attention and recognition, just go out day in and day out and make our neighborhoods better places to live.”

Each individual honored was nominated by one of 15 community groups selected by Katz to participate in this year’s awards.

Katz hoped that the awards would inspire others to become involved and share their ideas with other community activists.

“The hope is that different neighborhoods will see how other people are solving similar problems. . . . It’s a way to exchange ideas and solutions and to know that you’re not in it alone,” he said.

Other individual winners include: Ardean Smith of Panorama City for her work in Graffiti Busters; James E. Acevedo of San Fernando for his work with the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 365, the Panorama Community Foundation and other community groups; Rev. Dong Kyum Hong of the Korean Church of North Los Angeles for work with new immigrants from Korea, and helping other poor families.

Telly Epperson, an 11th-grader at San Fernando High, for his volunteer youth work at the Boys and Girls Club of San Fernando; Natalie and Harold Baird of Sylmar, of Graffiti Busters; Susan Bartlett for work with the Sun Valley Residents’ Assn. and the Sun Valley Graffiti Busters; Arthur Peterson who has been active in the Alicia Ann Ruch California Burn Foundation and who is a supporter of MEND, an organization that helps to feed, clothe and educate the needy; Kara Adamson, a junior honor student at Granada Hills High School who worked as a counselor in training at Camp Whittle, a YMCA camp.

Lucki Baxter, a volunteer teen director for the YMCA; Lew Snow, the founder and current president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., who has worked to restore the lake at Hansen Dam Recreation Center; Cathy Anh, a junior at Chatsworth High for her volunteer work at Northridge Hospital Medical Center; Gloria McGurn, Diane Deutsch, and Lori Wheeler for their work with children at Vena Elementary School in Arleta; Betty and Horace De Mille, founders of the North East Valley Residents’ Assn.; Marsha Dickinson, for her volunteer work with literacy programs at the Northridge Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.