Toberman Agency Celebrates Its 90th With Call for Cash

Call it a celebration with an edge.

Toberman Settlement House, perhaps the biggest private social service organization in the Los Angeles Harbor area, celebrates its 90th anniversary today with a dinner and silent auction, combining an occasion for reminiscing with a call for financial help.

Items in the silent auction include Lakers tickets, box seats for the Hollywood Bowl, certificates to local restaurants, running shoes, and five prints by internationally recognized artist Ernie Barnes.

It is a reminder that as public funds continue to shrivel, private social service groups must find more creative ways to stay afloat.

“The needs are enormous and other agencies and other groups in society that used to do things are not doing it,” said Diane Middleton, chairwoman of the Toberman board. “The burden is falling on Toberman.

“For example, one of the new programs that we have is . . . a way for young people--pregnant mothers, troubled teens--to get their (General Equivalency Degree). Now why is that at Toberman? Because (the Los Angeles Unified School District) didn’t have space. They had a teacher but no space, so they came to us, and they’re not paying rent.”

Toberman, which is nonprofit, gets its money largely from the United Way and other charitable organizations. The sprawling complex at 1st Street and Grand Avenue in San Pedro houses a variety of programs, including drug rehabilitation, parenting classes, gang outreach, boxing and other kinds of recreation for youths.

For many in the harbor area, Toberman has been a lifelong mooring.

Delfina Rivera, 66, began going to Toberman Settlement House as a teen-ager, taking dancing lessons as well as sewing and cooking classes.

“Later as a young married woman I was in the young mothers club and we would make clothes for dolls at (Christmastime),” said Rivera, who is now involved in Toberman’s programs for senior citizens.

The agency was founded in 1903 with a grant from James Toberman, whom Abraham Lincoln sent to Los Angeles during the Civil War as a tax collector.

Toberman eventually was elected to six one-year terms as mayor and brought electricity to Los Angeles. He and his wife founded the Homer Toberman Deaconess Home and Clinic on Sunset Boulevard after the death of their 29-year-old son, Homer.

A document prepared by James Toberman shows that at the time he was mayor, routine crimes included leaving a horse unhitched in the city. Today, the routine crimes are more serious, and some of Toberman’s most important work is done in reaching out to harbor-area gangs.

Toberman officials say the work has made a difference.

“At this time last year, there were 15 deaths in the harbor from gang-related violence,” Middleton said. “This year there are three. The credit does not go to Toberman, it goes to the young men and women who want a better life. But Toberman is facilitating that process by giving them a place to meet and working with them.”

The programs may have changed over the years, but Toberman’s mission has remained the same, said Howard Uller, Toberman’s executive director for 17 years.

“We’re part of the ongoing struggle to end poverty and racism,” Uller said. “Can those things be ended? I think they have to be. We have a contribution to make toward that end and we do it by bringing people together of all ethnicities.”

Today’s celebration begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Princess Pavilion, Berth 95 of the Port of Los Angeles. Tickets cost $25.