Mother Opens Center to Help Combat Gangs

A West Covina woman has started a foundation to provide free recreational and educational classes for youths.

Brenda Ozuna, 29, formed the Whitney Ann Foundation in April in response to city officials’ request that local parents become involved in solving the city’s gang problem.

The group meets on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at the Shadow Oak community center in West Covina. About 20 volunteers help run the program.

Greg Jones, the city’s superintendent of recreation and community services, said the city supports Ozuna’s efforts and is letting her group use the city’s sports equipment and facility for a token $1 every six months.

About 80 youths have attended the volunteer-taught classes, which include tennis, karate, reading and math, Ozuna said. The group also offers English classes for Spanish-speaking adults who bring their children to the center. Other activities include boxing, baseball, volleyball, cooking and beauty care.

The sessions are held from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Ozuna, a collection and billing representative for an Irwindale company, is the single mother of a teen-age son, and she is also rearing a niece. The group’s founder said she almost died two years ago after suffering an abnormal pregnancy.

If the embryo had developed and the child had been a girl, she would have named her Whitney Ann, Ozuna said.

Instead, she bestowed the name on the foundation she created.

“I was depressed (after the ill-fated pregnancy) for months and months,” she said. “I realized that if I could fight so hard for a child I had never seen, why couldn’t I fight for children on the streets? God didn’t give me one child. He gave me 80.”

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