Countywide : County Passes Out $64,000 to 9 Groups

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday awarded nine county fund grants totaling $64,000, with $50,000 going to a Buena Park recreation program. The eight other grants are to be shared by nonprofit community groups countywide.

The $50,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of Buena Park comes from the urban park fund and will go toward an ongoing renovation of the club’s youth recreation clubhouse near Peak Park.

The money will help with a major overhaul of the building, which needs new doors, windows and flooring, club executive director Jean Morgan said. The remodeling began two years ago, but the work has gone slowly because the club was short of money.

“This really is like a dream come true for us,” Morgan said. “In electrical work alone, we have $15,000 to $20,000 worth of things that need to be done. Now they will be done.”

The Buena Park group, one of the county’s 15 Boys and Girls clubs, offers programs to more than 1,250 youngsters. Many of the children who participate are from single-parent or low-income families, and those youngsters especially benefit from the club’s daily, upbeat influence, said Supervisor William G. Steiner, who recommended the grant.

The other eight grants approved Tuesday, for social services, will benefit a group of programs to aid the county’s disadvantaged, disabled or distressed population.

The largest of the other grants, $5,000, went to Friends of the Court Appointed Advocates, a group that supports advocacy programs for abused or neglected children who are going through the court system.

The Orange County chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received $2,500, while the Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter of Costa Mesa was given $1,500.

Grants of $1,000 each went to the Boys and Girls Club of Tustin; Family Solutions, an Orange-based program that assists and houses abused children; the Homeless Intervention and Shelter House in Placentia; Paint Your Heart Out Anaheim, a campaign to help upgrade low-income homes in disrepair, and the Youth Employment Services of the Harbor Area.

The Board of Supervisors each year awards about 50 social services grants to county charity groups, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 each.