Center for the Blind Fights to Stay Open

Geraldo Cruz has always gained pleasure from the sounds of life, but now the looming closure of the Visually Handicapped Adults of the Valley Center in Van Nuys threatens to take away the sweetest sound of all: a perfect strike.

Blind since birth, Cruz and about 160 other Valley residents get their only recreational activity--such as the weekly bowling club--from the center. The only one of its kind providing free services in the Valley, the center is operating on a day-by-day basis after being shut down for a week due to lack of funds.

Some clients likened permanent closure to losing their sight all over again.

“If they close the center, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Cruz, 57, of Pacoima, who went bowling Thursday at Woodlake Bowl in Woodland Hills.

Helen Harris, the center’s board president, said the center was recently able to raise about $12,000 to pay two month’s back rent and insurance coverage for the eight vans, but the threat of closure is far from over.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, where the center is located, has given the center three months to find a new location and turned off the electricity for the kilns that students use for ceramics, Harris said. Church officials could not be reached for comment. “We’re trying to raise $36,000 by June 6,” said Harris. “That would pay for van drivers, teachers, supplies, the rent and part of the insurance. It would close if we did not reach that amount.”

The center, whose students range from 23 to 100 years old, also provides Braille and mobility classes and door-to-door transportation. The budget is about $450,000 annually, but private donations are down and a $142,000 city grant will not kick in until August, causing the fiscal crunch.

Meanwhile, the thought of losing the center hangs over the minds of many of the center’s 15 bowlers.

“I love bowling,” said 88-year-old Carmen Goldberg of Panorama City, who is partially blind. “If only we could keep it going. I’d do anything.”

Others, like 75-year-old Sid Carger of Pacoima, tried to keep his mind off the problem by concentrating on the game. Carger, who can only see shadows, once bowled a 165.

“Was that a strike?” asked Carger. “It sounded like one.”