SOUTH-CENTRAL : Providing a Haven to Play and Learn

At the East 60th Street Community Youth Center, Kenny Jones has created a safe place for children and teen-agers to have fun.

Jones, 49, transformed a gang hangout to one of the only community meeting places for area youth. And this year the center received an award for excellence in community service from the city.

“When I came here, people who lived in the immediate community would not allow their kids to come here,” said Jones, who began volunteering at the center in 1985. “There was no gang warfare or anything like that but their presence was intimidating.”

When Jones was hired by the city as the center’s director in 1989, she enlisted a network of friends and community organizations, including officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division to change the center’s image and revitalize its programs.

Volunteers from the city’s Community Youth Gang Services, the Nation of Islam and the Amer-I-Can Program, a self-esteem course for former gang members created by former football star Jim Brown, started to patrol the area and supervise the center’s playground.

“When Kenny calls, we respond, because we know the kids are going to benefit,” Brown said.

Now serving about 200 youths--ages 5 to 21--weekly, the center at 5871 S. Wall St. is once again a safe place for youth, Jones said.

“She has done a tremendous job,” said Lou Dantzler, the founder and executive director of the Challengers Boys and Girls Club in South-Central. “When she came on, the center was dying and she rebuilt it.”

With an estimated $100,000 annual budget and funding from the city and private sources such as Pacific Bell, the center offers martial arts and photography classes, after-school tutorials, Nintendo and board games on weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

Started as a block club in 1968 through community efforts to rebuild the area after the 1965 Watts riots, Jones said the center became a nonprofit entity in 1972 in order to receive public and private funds to create programs for youngsters.

On a recent afternoon, Jones kept a watchful eye as a few teen-agers came into the center to play dominoes and Nintendo.

“If I hear a sound, a curse word or see someone doing something they’re not supposed to, I jump,” Jones said. “We’re trying to instill self-respect around here.”

Many youths who visit the center said Jones and her staff of five, who are paid by the city, have created a warm environment.

“It’s great to come up here,” said Maurice Hamilton, 16, interrupting a Nintendo game. “It’s a safe place to meet my friends, to play games or just hang out.”