BUENA PARK : 6 Service Agencies Get $52,000 in Grants

The City Council awarded several Community Development Block Grants this week to social service agencies in and around the city.

More than $52,000 was handed out to six organizations, including the Buena Park Boys and Girls Club, the Women’s Transitional Living Center, the Fair Housing Council and the Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled.

“Any help that we can get we appreciate,” said Fran Shiffman, executive director of the Women’s Transitional Living Center, one of three shelters in Orange County for battered women and their children.

The shelter, which received $5,000 from the city, houses women and children and offers counseling to both women and men involved in domestic violence. About half of the shelter’s budget comes from government sources, Shiffman said, and because of the tough economy, more people are offering to provide services, such as painting, in lieu of money they would normally donate.

The grant money will go toward the shelter’s programs, including a hot line and education programs for women in the shelter and other abused women. “In addition to the safe place, we want to be a place of change,” Shiffman said.

The Boys and Girls Club received $10,000, which it plans to use to pay utility bills. Last year’s grant was used to renovate the building’s bathrooms, said executive director Jean Morgan.

During the summer months, about 200 children a day attend recreational programs and activities there, she said.