She Helps People to Help Themselves

Until last year, Barbara Ortega was a skeptical donor to charitable groups. If she saw a group featured on television, she might send in a donation--but only if she were convinced the cause was worthwhile.

But while watching the 1992, riots, the retired Los Angeles Police Department detective decided to boost her involvement by supporting deserving enterprises on an ongoing basis and encouraging others to do the same. After months of research to find and evaluate groups she believed tried to make a difference to society, she created Bootstraps, which serves as a liaison between such enterprises and individual and business donors.

Ironically, the project generated little response in Los Angeles. So Ortega, who left the LAPD in 1981 because of a medical condition and lives in Ventura, devotes her energy to six organizations in Ventura and Oxnard.

“Even little Ventura is developing a gang problem and social ills,” says Ortega, 46, who quit her part-time job as a legal secretary to work on Bootstraps. “The people have a sense that we have to take care of these things here. But many organizations are running on shoestrings. They’re losing their funding--the United Way has been cut down, and you can’t depend on the government.”

Ortega envisions a large network of small donors, each pledging whatever they can every month to one of her chosen groups. For $15 a year to cover costs, members receive a newsletter every other month that contains a message from Ortega, updates on the organizations, and columns by Myrle Horne, a social worker and Bootstraps consultant, and 13-year-old Garrett Brown, Ortega’s nephew. His column aims to make contributing a family affair. Business owners also receive a certificate to display, attesting to their Bootstraps involvement.

Ortega, who distributed her first newsletter in September, coordinates the monthly pledges, with the money going directly to the organizations. So far, nearly 50 people have signed on. In selecting the groups, she says, “My focus was on breaking the cycle, helping people to help themselves. Even the word Bootstraps has the connotation of picking yourself up.

“As a recovering alcoholic, that’s the process I had to go through,” she adds. “I look for organizations that give people a fishing pole rather than a fish.”

Such enterprises include the Buenaventura Boxing Club, whose coach, Ruben Juarez, an ex-gang member who narrowly missed qualifying for the 1992 Olympic boxing team, uses the sport to keep Latinos out of gangs. The Turning Point Foundation provides the homeless mentally ill with shelter, job training and other necessities. The after-school tutoring program of Project Understanding helps low-income students with homework, motivation and self-esteem problems.

Also on the Bootstraps roster is Caregivers, whose volunteers help the elderly with physically demanding household chores, enabling them to live in their own homes rather than in nursing facilities. Neighborhood Uplift, coordinated by the Oxnard Police Department, hosts two endeavors for young people referred by probation departments, the courts and schools: a graffiti cleanup and a program that rewards such actions as regularly attending school with special local outings. The Crew, based in Ojai, is an environmental camp that teaches youth the importance of ecology.

Although Bootstraps was inspired by the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and state-court verdicts, Ortega says it is just coincidence that she is a former LAPD officer. But that career has proven advantageous, she says. “I think it adds a little more credibility to my general subscribers,” she says, “that a retired police officer is running this.”

Ortega hopes to support more organizations. “There are so many things going wrong,” she says. “We have to be willing to get out there on the front line with the people who get their hands dirty. These are our problems, too.”

(Bootstraps may be reached by calling (805) 653-1849 or writing to P.O. Box 998, Ventura, Calif. 93002-0998.)