Dedication Is Trademark of This Optimist

Calling 76-year-old Al Arnold of Tarzana dedicated is like calling Babe Ruth a good hitter.

In his 36 years as a member in the Optimist Club, an international community service network made up of men and women dedicated to helping youth, Arnold hasn’t missed a weekly meeting.

He’s been with the Optimist Club of Woodland Hills since 1986 and before that spent 29 years as a charter member of the chapter in Brentwood, where he owned and operated a grocery store before retiring in 1977.

The all-volunteer Optimist Club, which has nine chapters in the San Fernando Valley with about 30 members each, raises funds and assists shelters serving the homeless or battered women and children; it helps run the Braille Olympics and an oratorical contest for junior high students, works with the Police Activity League Supporters in distributing food for the needy, and assists with the El Camino Real High School career day.

The group also takes kids on field trips to ballgames or places such as Disneyland and Magic Mountain.

Arnold is especially dedicated to the oratorical contest, in which kids from across the U.S. and Canada compete for $1,500 scholarships by writing, memorizing and delivering a four- to five-minute speech.

For the last 34 years, Arnold has worked with students, going into schools to coach the young orators in enunciation, projection and delivery.

He now works with kids at Portola Junior High, a magnet school in Tarzana, and last month one of his proteges, eighth-grader Wendi Glodery, advanced from a field of hundreds to the area “speak-off” before being eliminated.

In 1988, another of Arnold’s charges, a 13-year-old Portola student named Omar Cooper from South-Central Los Angeles, just missed winning the scholarship when he finished second in the district.

“He never spoke before in front of a group,” Arnold said. “I couldn’t believe how good he became. He was elegant, and his presentation was beautiful.”

Arnold has lived in the Los Angeles area since 1927, when his family moved from Cleveland. He was valedictorian of his George Washington High School graduating class of 1934 and remembers how the school was condemned after the Long Beach earthquake of 1933.

“Our school was destroyed,” he says. “We went to classes in World War I army tents.”

He concedes that the violence, gangs and drug problems that make headlines today were absent when he was a kid, but he refuses to believe that young people in general are worse than they were in his day.

“I’d say 95% of the kids today are good,” he says.

Saying “there’s more to life than making money,” Arnold calls volunteering a good way to keep busy and touts the Optimist Club as the perfect remedy for anyone whose attitude can use a boost.

“There’s a self-satisfaction in seeing a kid progress,” he says.

The Optimist Club of Woodland Hills welcomes members from throughout the Valley. For more information, call Laski (818-702-9155).

Other volunteering opportunities:

The Pacoima-based agency MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity) seeks school, church or community groups to help with the sorting of canned goods donated by Valley residents during a recent Postal Service food drive. Contact Jim LeQuesne (818-908-5066).

The San Fernando Valley unit of the American Cancer Society seeks volunteer drivers to provide rides for 50 patients who receive 400 one-way rides monthly to chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Contact Robin Bergman (818-989-5555).

The Van Nuys-based Juvenile Community Service Program, which helps arrange community service work for juveniles convicted of minor criminal offenses, needs volunteers to assist with filing and other light clerical duties. Contact Leticia Cabrera (818-908-5040).