There will be extra cause for celebration...

There will be extra cause for celebration Sunday at the sixth annual picnic of Family Friends, a project of the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.

Thanks to a $50,000 challenge grant from the nation’s largest health care philanthropy group, the Family Friends Project, which matches volunteers 55 and older with families of disabled or chronically ill children, will almost certainly survive for another year. The project had been facing closure in September.

Volunteer “grandparents” in the program spend about four hours a week with the children, helping with homework, taking them to a park or to medical appointments and acting as an emotional support to their parents and siblings, said Susie Forer-Dehry, who directs the program.

“Many of the children do not have grandparents living nearby,” she said. “In some cases it is difficult for grandparents to interact with these children because it’s emotionally painful.”

Rabbi Lennard Thal, regional director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (the Reform Movement) and a former board member of the Jewish Family Service, said, “From a Jewish perspective, the family unit is the most important part of the community. For the Jewish Family Service to sustain a program that strengthens families with these special challenges is to respond to one of the highest imperatives of Jewish tradition.”

Launched in 1986 with a $500,000 four-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which also made the challenge grant, the project is co-sponsored by UCLA Medical Center and Huntington Memorial Hospital. It is open to participants of all faiths.

Family Friends provides three social workers and a child life specialist to screen and provide support for the volunteers, who meet monthly for supervision and discussion. Currently, there are 67 matches in West Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley.

Volunteer Geri Davis of Tujunga said of her “family friend,” a 10-year-old girl, “I feel (she) needs me and I need her. We don’t always agree, but we are nurturing a friendship that will last forever.”

From the recipients’ point of view, the service is invaluable. “It’s a real break,” one mother said, “and it’s given me an opportunity to care for my disabled child with a more healthy attitude by giving me an extended family, which I didn’t have.”

The challenge grant requires the recipient to raise matching funds. Forer-Dehry said Family Friends is well on its way, with $25,000 from the Weingart Foundation, $10,000 from the Ahmanson Foundation and smaller individual donations.

“This is a project in which everyone wins--the senior, the family, the child. Its survival benefits the entire community,” Forer-Dehry said.

Jewish Family Service is a non-sectarian social service agency. For information about the Family Friends Project, call (310) 825-9647.

DATES

* Theologian and author Rosemary Radford Ruether will speak about her most recent book, “Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing,” at 7 p.m. July 17 at Immaculate Heart High School. Ruether, who has taught at Howard, Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Sir George Williams universities, is Georgia Harkness professor of applied theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. The school is located at Franklin and Western avenues in Los Angeles. Requested admission is $10, or $3 for seniors and low-income persons; phone (213)386-3116.

* The Rev. Daryl Fischer-Ogden, visiting preacher at Woodland Hills Presbyterian Church, presents his final two sermons on Presbyterian confessions at two services. The sermon Sunday is “Standing Fast (Theological Declaration of Barmen)” and the July 18 sermon is “On Being Partners (the Confession of 1967).” The services are at 10 a.m. 5751 Platt Ave. (818) 346-7894.

* Earth Trust Foundation presents an evening talk and seminar with Angeles Arrien, cultural anthropologist and author, on “The Healing Bridge: Universal Themes of Human Culture.” Basque-born Arrien is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. The lecture is at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 16 ($12 admission); the seminar is from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, July 17. Admission is $95. Both events will be held at First Christian Church, 609 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica. (310) 456-8300.

SEARCH

* A bone marrow transplant donor for a 24-year-old victim of a rare and fatal form of leukemia will be sought by Hadassah delegates during their national convention Sunday through Wednesday at the Century Plaza Hotel. Doctors say that a “miracle match” for the young man will most likely come from a person of Eastern European ancestry. So far, the Friends of Jay Feinberg organization has tested people throughout the United States, Canada and Israel, resulting in transplants for 60 people. Volunteers in good health ages 18 to 55 may be tested Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For further information, call (310) 277-2000 and ask for the Governor’s Board Room.

OUTREACH

* Father Pedro Villaroya, a member of the Vincentian fathers, has been named director of the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s Hispanic Ministry by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Villaroya, 59, replaces Father Anastacio Rivera, who is on a sabbatical leave required by his Jesuit order. Villaroya is one of the founding members of the Interreligious Sponsoring Committee, which eventually formed UNO, the United Neighborhoods Organization. Latinos form the largest single ethnic group in the archdiocese; more than 50% of Catholics in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are Latinos. Spanish-language Masses are celebrated in 197 of the 284 parishes.

* The first two Jewish group homes in Los Angeles for adults with developmental disabilities will be established with the help of a $171,500 grant by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Los Angeles. The homes will be operated as an affiliate of the Jewish Homes for the Aging of Greater Los Angeles.

* Sister Teresa Doherty, Catholic chaplain at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, and Angie Hurtado, Catholic co-chaplain at Central Juvenile Hall, have been presented 1993 Youth Outreach Awards by the Youth Ministry Coordinating Council of the Los Angeles Archdiocese in recognition of their service in prison-detention ministry. Friend to Friend, a nonprofit community group that involves youths from 26 schools in a peer-based program to reduce drug abuse, gang involvement and teen-age pregnancy and dropping out of school school dropout and suicide, also received an award.

* Gideon Kanner of Burbank and Marcella Newman of Palm Springs are among those slated to attend the Second International Conference of Children Hidden During World War II in Jerusalem beginning Monday. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and others will address the conference, sponsored by the Hidden Child Foundation/Anti-Defamation League.

Notices may be sent to Southern California File by mail c/o Religion Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or by fax to (213) 237-4712. Items must be brief and arrive at least three weeks in advance of the event announced. Include a phone number, date, time and full address.