COSTA MESA : Parents Have High Hopes for Center

Paint buckets, newspapers and dozens of used brushes line the wall of one of the rooms at the Save Our Youth Center. In another room, an old Ping-Pong table, which wobbles when someone leans on it, and some weights rest in the corner.

These rooms, situated in the back of the former Rea School, have been recycled many times.

Originally, they were part of the girls’ bathroom and gym at Rea School--before the school was closed. After that, the rooms served as the home of Share Our Selves charity, which for many years used them to distribute food, clothing and medical attention to the poor.

Now they are undergoing their latest transformation to become the headquarters of Save Our Youth, a youth center started by a contingent of Costa Mesa parents to keep children away from gangs and drugs.

Although the rooms are mostly empty, they are full of the dreams of Nora Maher and Eva Marin who hope to fill them someday with things like basketball games and computer equipment and plenty of children.

“Over there we are going to put cubbyholes for them to study,” said Maher pointing to an area in the former shower stalls. “We will have a pool table in here.”

It was during a community meeting last year that a group of Latino parents decided something needed to be done. The meeting came just months before the fatal gang shooting of 19-year-old Ivan Ulises Torres-Carrillo.

“I used to work at Pomona School. Some of the kids that were little kindergartners were now in jail,” said Maher, a mother of five. “That is the part that really got me involved.”

Marin felt equally committed. Working with a small core of about 20 parents, the group began holding meetings and plotting strategy. To help get things off the ground, they held garage sales and carwashes, raising about $300. They got some donations, including furniture from Share Our Selves and magazines from the local schools.

Eventually they won the support of the city, which agreed to let them use the Rea facility free of charge and also hired Marco Perez to help oversee the center.

They also enlisted the help of Rene Sanchez, a Costa Mesa resident and former gang member who worries about his own children and the children he sees on the streets.

“I talked to them, walked the streets to see if they wanted to help clean,” said Sanchez, whose body is covered with the tattoos he got while in prison. “I would explain to these kids the mistakes I had made.”

Since then, several of the teens have been coming to the center and tearing down walls, painting or just hanging out. Ruben Sanchez sometimes draws when he comes. His artwork, including a pencil sketch of a man balancing the center’s logo on his muscular shoulders, is proudly displayed on one wall. It will soon be patched together with others and made into a quilt.

While the teens begin to discover the center, the parents are busy trying to find volunteers and donations. Eventually they hope to have a tutoring staff on hand, dance lessons, art classes and much more. And the list doesn’t end there.

“Come back in a year,” Marin said. “We have big plans for this place.”

To get things off the ground, the parents are holding an open house today from noon to 3 p.m. at the Save Our Youth Center, 661 Hamilton St.