Businessman Helps One High School Bloom With Pride

John Maloney walked across the South Gate High School lawn, among the thousands of flowers he has donated. “Papa Maloney, Papa Maloney,” the students called out, having spotted this man in the white butcher’s coat, their hero.

Beneath a tall pine tree, where a year ago there had been a mudhole, there were now geraniums, snapdragons, lilies, impatiens, daisies and petunias making a rare splash of color along Firestone Boulevard.

“I keep it nice, I keep it beautiful,” said Maloney, whose butcher shop is two doors from the school that recently was judged “outstanding” in a Los Angeles Unified School District beautification contest.

Near the base of the three-story school, roses, wet from a sprinkling Monday morning, exuded their fragrance.

“The students like to smell the roses,” Maloney said. “You would expect (roses) in Beverly Hills, but this is South Gate, a highly industrialized city.”

No one tries harder to beautify the school and the city. His own flower-decorated store, Maloney Meats, a red brick building with a chalet-type roof, blooms at the intersection of State Street amid a stark stretch of Firestone that houses factories, auto parts stores and machine and body shops.

Maloney, 68, one of the few Irish residents in a mostly Latino city, is as identifiable as his store, in which, seven days a week, he looks down through bifocals as he slices ham or works the cash register.

The store is heavily stocked with pork and chicken, and crowded with crates of fruits and vegetables. Jars of lard sit atop the meat counter, next to roses. On the walls are Maloney’s awards, mostly for his beautification efforts, and a plaque he received in 1989 as the city’s businessman of the year.

“You could call him Mr. South Gate,” said Pam House, director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. “He will do anything for the community.”

Outside the butcher shop, flowers grow in planters. Bordering the parking lot are sculpted ficus trees and a low wall--one section red, white and blue, and another, in a tribute to Mexico, green, orange and white. Overhead is an American flag that once flew over the U.S. Capitol. The base of the flagpole is a showcase for azaleas.

A native Pennsylvanian and a World War II veteran, Maloney operated his store in Huntington Park for 20 years, and has been at Firestone Boulevard and State Street the last eight years. When he moved to South Gate, he said he wanted to help preserve its title as the Azalea City.

“I had this very exposed corner,” he said. “It was a good place to show azaleas, so I jumped on the bandwagon.”

That sparked his interest in beautification, but it was the students at South Gate High who gave him the idea of landscaping their school.

“They’d walk by and say, ‘Make our school beautiful, too, Papa Maloney,’ ” he said.

Maloney’s eagerness to undertake the yearlong project did not surprise Police Chief Ron George. “We call him John (Big Heart) Maloney,” George said. “He’s such a generous person. He always sends a plate over to the police officers during the holidays.”

One of the first things Maloney did was to put in planters at the school’s entrance. “You know, when you go to these nice hotels and all, there’s always something there to greet you, plants or flowers,” he said.

Maloney then turned his attention to the high school’s front lawn, which had holes and ugly patches of bare dirt. Aided by the students and his employees at the butcher shop, Maloney planted the flowers. Most of them are red and white, the school colors.

“It’s good to do this at my age,” said Maloney, who also donates flowers to South Gate Junior High and San Gabriel Elementary School. “I’m up and down, up and down. It’s good exercise. And it’s something constructive.”

He would not estimate how much he has spent on flowers over the years. “My wife (Theresa) would kill me,” he said, laughing.

On Monday morning, he entered the school’s lobby and was met by Ernestine Armstrong, a campus aide. “I just watered these this morning, Mr. Maloney,” she said, pointing to the plants that Maloney had put in near the trophy case.

Happy to be in the butcher’s presence, she said, “Everybody loves him, he’s a great humanitarian. The young people are so proud and the parents are so proud of what he’s done. They say, ‘Oh, that’s such a precious man.’ ”

Two students, Josie and Susie Estrada, rushed up. “The flowers are beautiful, thank you, Mr. Maloney,” Josie said. “We were just talking about how beautiful our school looks compared to other schools because of our flowers.”

Her eyes brightened at a memory of Maloney. “In the other store he had, he used to give me free slices of ham,” she said.

Her sister added: “We had our senior barbecue (at the school) and he donated beef for us.”

Back outside, Maloney, who each day at dawn comes over and picks up even the tiniest scraps of paper, looked proudly at the litter-free grounds and his undisturbed handiwork.

“The kids don’t fool with these flowers, no, no, no,” he said.

The mornings are what Maloney enjoys most, when the students walk past his shop--”My God, thousands, thousands”--en route to a fragrant world they had not known before.

One of the students, upon seeing the butcher at their school, will invariably say, “Papa Maloney, it’s so beautiful.”

And that is the only thanks he ever needs.