Crime Victim Was Eyes for Blind Youths : Slaying: Youngsters were robbed of a treasured helper after volunteer Amalia Sison was shot.

Amalia C. Sison was one of the Foundation for the Junior Blind’s most dedicated volunteers. She was one of the very few who arrived early each morning by bus to help a small group of children start their day.

But last Tuesday, the 69-year-old woman was shot through the eye during a robbery attempt as she waited behind the Windsor Hills foundation for her afternoon bus back to her Central City home.

Sison died Thursday night at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. Two boys, ages 15 and 17 from Inglewood and Santa Monica, were arrested in the shooting. Prosecutors filed murder charges against the boys Friday and a deputy district attorney said she would seek to try the two as adults.

None of this has yet registered with the 8- to 16-year-old children Sison tended to daily, said Jane McKinnon, principal of the foundation’s school.

It probably never will.

They only sense that the warm presence of the woman who routinely helped them with the smallest chores, who accompanied them on field trips to shopping malls and other places, is not there.

*

“She worked with a very difficult population, but she loved the challenge and the reward of it,” said McKinnon.

“She was a real day-to-day nurturer.”

Sison was one of 18 volunteers working as a foster grandparent at the foundation, which serves blind children and young adults and those with multiple disabilities. She had worked with McKinnon’s school since 1990, and four years before that with an adult program until it folded.

McKinnon said that Sison, a retired dentist and native of the Philippines, took particular pleasure in helping feed the children breakfast. She also liked to help them with motor coordination and life-skill activities such as getting dressed, washing and combing their hair.

McKinnon said that Sison’s dedication was especially appreciated by instructors, who frequently had only one other foster grandparent working in the classroom.

“She was just a a warm, wonderful person,” McKinnon said.

“She helped out in so many ways . . . and it was really appreciated. It makes what happened that much more senseless.”