A Job Saver in Jeopardy : Pacoima: A low-fee day-care program for 52 children was set up to help parents go to work and stay off welfare. But the money is running out.

A day-care program that some parents in the San Fernando Gardens Housing Project say is the only reason they are able to keep their jobs and stay off welfare could close its doors at the end of this month for lack of funding, administrators said.

“If it weren’t for the center, I wouldn’t be able to afford to go to work,” said Hilda Fernandez, a part-time administrative aide who has two children enrolled in the program. “This gave me the opportunity to even consider going back to work.”

Without the program, she said, she might have to go on welfare.

The program--dubbed the Pacoima Youth Development School-Age Program--serves 52 children, ages 5 to 13, in classrooms at Pacoima Elementary School. Aimed at families in San Fernando Gardens and nearby residents, it was started in July, 1992, with a grant of $100,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

One of two federally funded day-care programs run by the Antelope-Valley based Youth Development Corp., it was set up to help parents like Fernandez increase their educational and job opportunities by providing child care at little or no cost. The program has been so popular that administrators have stopped taking names for the waiting list.

But money is running out, said director Elisa Garcia, because the HUD money came in the form of a one-time grant. And the search for a new grant, she said, has so far been unsuccessful.

The other program, located in San Pedro, is expected to run out of money in June, she said.

‘A lot of these children will be left home alone because parents will not be able to give up their jobs,” Garcia said. “With the smaller children, parents will have to lose their jobs.”

Garcia estimated it would take about $120,000 to fund the program for a year, including salaries for six full- and part-time staff members.

Garcia and Youth Development Corp. board member Catherine Speer have been beating the bushes for grants from local foundations, but so far none has responded positively.

So two weeks ago, Garcia called the parents together and told them the bad news.

But the parents weren’t willing to stand by and watch the program end. Fernandez and others in similar straits are fighting to keep it alive by lobbying local and federal officials for additional funding. They are penning letters and making phone calls. Some have even suggested a candy drive to raise funds to keep it going.

“As a productive wage-earner trying to assist my own family by working, the center provides the much-needed support I need in staying off the welfare rolls,” Fernandez wrote in a letter to be mailed to elected officials. “This program not only assists me and my family but others who are trying very hard in being self-supporting.”

Victoriana Camacho, a housekeeper who usually works from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., remembers when she used to rush to the school from work to pick up her 7-year-old son, Christian. “My son used to wait for me, crying at the door,” she said.

But once he enrolled in the program, she said, Christian did not have to wait alone for his mother. And Camacho did not have to worry about him if she was running late.

“Now I feel very good that he is being taken care of,” Camacho said. If the program ends, she said, she will have to use money earmarked for food and rent to hire a baby sitter.

Parents say they support the program not only because it provides a safe haven for their children but also because it provides educational and recreational activities as well.

In the classroom, children receive help with their homework or work on arts and crafts. Some children work on projects on subjects such as the solar system and dinosaurs.

Last week, some children worked on autobiographies, wrote essays about their families and colored outlines of their hands.

“They’re teaching them a lot,” said Irma Morales, whose 7-year-old twins, Michelle and Jason, participate in the program. “They help them with their homework. They teach them how to sing and dance.”