Olympic Fund to Aid Areas Hit by Riots : Grants: Foundation sets aside $1 million in surplus revenue from ’84 Games for sports programs in impacted communities. Five awards are announced.

The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, which distributes surplus monies from the 1984 Olympics to Southern California youth sports, announced Monday that it has established a $1-million fund to aid youngsters in areas impacted by the riots.

Five grants from the fund, totaling $111,664, were announced. The two largest went to predominantly Korean-American and Latino areas and the other three went to African-American areas. All were within the foundation’s usual confines of sports programs.

The foundation, which includes Rebuild L.A. Chairman and former Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee President Peter V. Ueberroth on its board of directors, has been under periodic fire for not spending more of its funds in economically distressed neighborhoods.

Last December, three of its directors--Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Los Angeles County labor leader Bill Robertson--resigned, charging that other directors were unwilling to add young activists to the board.

But it was revealed Monday that Bradley has returned as a non-voting board member emeritus, and he participated in the news conference announcing the $1-million commitment.

Asked why he rejoined the board, Bradley said: “They’ve made some changes and I hope they’ll make other changes. I’m pleased they have been very quickly responsive to the needs of South-Central Los Angeles and have come up with this money.”

As for other changes that Bradley thought might be needed, the mayor was not specific, saying “just responding to basic needs.”

Foundation President Anita de Frantz said the first grants under the special fund include $42,074 to the Hollywood Wilshire/Koreatown YMCA “to coordinate and oversee youth sports programs that help to meet the needs of youngsters in Koreatown,” and $35,000 to the Hollenbeck Youth Center on the Eastside “for the purchase of gymnastics equipment and gymnastics programming.”

The Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation in South Los Angeles was given $24,590 “to continue its boxing program, which has been successful in instilling discipline and self-respect in underprivileged and at-risk youth, ages 11-19,” while grants of $5,000 each went to the Carson Colts football team and the Hoover Street Gymnasium.

De Frantz said other sports organizations are invited to apply for the remaining $889,000 in the fund.

In all, despite spending $46 million, the foundation has amassed assets of $104 million through investments of its initial $95-million share of the 1984 Summer Games surplus. Although the foundation had planned to finish spending its funds by 2004, it changed its policies to seemingly allow the organization to exist in perpetuity--a shift that Robertson and Reinhardt criticized after their resignations.

Since its origin in 1985, the foundation has spent $24 million in grants to youth sports projects; $8 million on its own programs, such as its annual summer swim project; $6 million on its Paul Ziffren Sports Resource Center and Library; $5 million on other facilities, and $5 million on administration.