Cash Woes Threaten Boys and Girls Club

After months of rumors, officials of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hollywood and Echo Park confirmed this week that the Echo Park branch will close Dec. 31 unless a major donor is found to pump money into the facility.

Community members are now seeking ways to prevent the shutdown of the club at 303 Patton St., which for six years has provided local children ages 6 to 18 with a haven from violence and gang activity.

“We just found out, so there is no specific plan at this moment,” said Sandra Flores, president of an advisory council composed of community members.

“We’re just hoping, wishing and praying,” said Nate Wilson, the club’s unit director.

The Echo Park club, which is run as a branch of the 50-year-old Hollywood facility, provides 1,000 youths each year with everything from athletics and recreational outings to tutoring, cooking and art classes. Youths pay a $5 annual fee for unlimited use of the club, which has a gym, a weight room, an arts and crafts room, a game room with pool and Ping-Pong tables and a recreation room with a big-screen television.

Members say the club provides local youths with a place they can call their own. “It’s like my second home,” Eugenia Chan, 17, said one recent afternoon as she watched three of her brothers, ages 10, 12 and 14, play a spirited game of indoor football in the gym with other boys of all ages.

“I have a lot of friends here,” she said. “I play Nintendo and pool. They help me with my homework, they have parties here. My little brothers are all here too; it’s better here. They don’t get shot. I don’t want them to grow up to be gangbangers. If they do, they’re going to die.

“If they close down, what are we going to do?”

Executive Director Tom Stretz agreed that the Echo Park branch has had a positive effect on local youth. But the club has been a financial drain on the nonprofit corporation since it opened in 1986, said Stretz, who took over the leadership position just a week ago, after three years as a YMCA director.

Community contributions to the Echo Park facility have been scarce, forcing officials to tap into the organization’s reserves to cover the club’s operating costs, which range from $160,000 to $200,000 a year, Stretz said.

“The last thing we want to do is close the club,” Stretz said. “We’re proud of what we’ve been able to do there. The reality is, we’re out of money.”

Stretz said the void left by the Echo Park club’s closure would be difficult to fill. The Hollywood facility, five miles away, would become the closest Boys and Girls Club for Echo Park youth.

“The nature of the Boys and Girls Club is a neighborhood club, a walk-on kind of site. So it’d be difficult for that to be continued at this site,” Stretz said. “Everybody wins except the kids.

“If we could get a benefactor, there would be smiles all over the place.”

Information: (213) 464-1017.