As Office Shuts, Door Closes for 7-Year-Old

In hopes of getting a Big Sister, 7-year-old Carlene Liza has kept her end of the bargain for the past two years. Now it’s up to the adults to come through.

“I was good. I clean my room every day, clean under my bed, closet and the restroom,” the Rosemead girl said.

But when the San Gabriel Valley office of the Big Sisters of Los Angeles closed Monday, it brought the likelihood of a much longer wait.

The local office, in Rosemead within walking distance of Carlene’s home, was the first victim of the Big Sisters’ budget deficit. The agency projects only $635,000 will be raised by the end of June for this fiscal year--15% short of the amount needed to run the operation. About 85% of its funds come from private donations; government funding provides the rest.

Late in the week, some belated hope came through for the local office, said Janet Schulman, executive director for the regional organization. After the announcement about the closure, three people responded with offers of new office space, she said.

One was the use of a church on certain days, another was use of an Azusa commercial property, and the third was an offer to pay the rent of any office chosen by the Big Sisters agency, Schulman said. If any of these offers come through, it would take about two months before anything is concrete, she said.

“We would need a space that’s easily accessible and safe to our clients,” Schulman said. “We don’t want the phone calls (of help) to stop. We hope they will continue to call and see what they can do for us.”

Schulman remains determined to keep up the services in the valley.

“I don’t want people to think we’re going under. We are very committed to the San Gabriel Valley. . . . We can still service the people, though it will be much more difficult,” she said.

The agency’s shortfall could also mean the agency’s San Fernando Valley branch office could shut down in August, leaving only the Carson branch and the main office in Mid-Wilshire to provide support services to 330 girls in Los Angeles County.

Schulman fears that the long commute to the Mid-Wilshire office for orientation and training will serve as a deterrent for new Big Sisters volunteers, and the children and their parents, who sometimes don’t have cars. She predicts the number of both volunteers and clients will drop in the coming months.

Venecia Back, a former Rosemead office social worker who now works out of the Carson office, said the time spent on long commutes to clients’ homes in the valley means she can serve fewer people. The lack of a local office would also mean slower responses to crisis situations like physical abuse, molestation or attempted suicides, she said.

But mostly, the impact will be felt by children like Carlene, who will have to wait longer for their Big Sister, Back said. The caseload once serviced by the second Rosemead social worker, who is leaving her job and moving out of the area, will be picked up by the others, further contributing to the backlog, she said.

The Rosemead office, which opened its doors in 1989, served a clientele of mostly Asian-American and Latina girls 6 to 18. The last thing the agency wants is to undo four years of investment in the community, Schulman said. “It took us a long time to make inroads in the Asian community, who are usually very private people and don’t look to outside for help.”

Schulman said the agency typically services girls from immigrant families who come into cultural conflict with their parents, or girls who live in neighborhoods where drugs, crime and poverty are so overwhelming that the their parents are unable to give them any attention.

The girls are matched with women over 21 who can commit three to five hours once a week for a year. The average relationship lasts about 2 1/2 years, she said.

Schulman said there are 15 Latina girls on the waiting list and two Anglo volunteers who do not appear to be good matches for any of the girls. There are 15 Asian-American volunteers whom the agency is trying to match with the seven Asian-American girls on the waiting list.

The agency takes several elements into account, including age, geographical proximity, personality, shared interests and racial preference, she said.

Back said the matching process is a carefully screened, time-consuming task that takes anywhere from two weeks to a year to best meet the girls’ needs.

Carlene has watched the fun of having a Big Sister from the sidelines since she was 5. Her sister, Esther, 10, once had a friend from the San Gabriel Valley branch office before her family moved temporarily to her grandfather’s home in Ontario.

Carlene used to watch the Big Sister take Esther each week to places like Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Chuck E Cheese’s.

“I just want a friend. . . . You get to go to places and stuff--like ice skating,” said Carlene, who since December has returned to her grandmother’s home in Rosemead with her mother, Rene, her sister, and her brother, Carlos, 9.

However the adults figure it out, Carlene said she is willing to “be patient and be good” until she gets her very own Big Sister. She didn’t qualify two years ago because she was too young; the minimum age is 6. But her mother told her that if she was good and kept her room and the family bathroom clean, she could get a Big Sister one day. She is ready now, she said.

And Esther, who waited only two months the last time, said she also wants a new one even if it means waiting longer because the Rosemead office has closed. She said she and her “pretty” Big Sister “used to talk about how we liked each other.”

Their mom, 31, who is on welfare, said she is sad about the Rosemead office closing because the Big Sisters program has been a tremendous help. She applied for Big Sisters for her two daughters last month.

“It was so close. . . . Esther needs a lot of attention, and she used to get the individual attention I couldn’t give and do things I couldn’t provide,” she said. “This kind of program is good for the children. I am going to wait no matter how long it takes.”