SUN VALLEY : Grant Would Help Expand Family Center

An East Valley group hopes to expand and renovate a family-care center at a Sun Valley school if a $400,000 grant in state funds is approved.

“The reality is we have very few services in our community,” said Deanna Chechile, project director for the East Valley Family Care Center at Glenwood Elementary School in Sun Valley.

The grant money would be used to buy new medical equipment and install a dental chair that had been donated by the North Hollywood Rotary Club last year. It would also pay to renovate two bungalows at the school for use as medical offices and a place for counseling sessions.

The Family Care Center started in October, 1992, as the Glenwood Family Care Center, offering medical screenings and immunizations for students. It expanded last year after the East Valley Partnership Community Council acquired a $50,000 state grant and $5,000 each from the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Sun Valley Community Venture Council.

Three other schools--Roscoe Elementary in Sun Valley and Camilla and Arminta elementary schools in North Hollywood--joined in a coalition with Glenwood to use the facility to help families in nearby neighborhoods.

The center is now also being used for gang-intervention programs for parents offered through the Los Angeles County Department of Probation. Counseling services are being offered by the Valley Community Clinic in North Hollywood and have helped those traumatized by the Northridge earthquake, Chechile said.

But even if state funding is not approved, Chechile said that parents supporting the center through the East Valley Partnership Community Council plan to keep the center open and staffed with volunteers.

The grant application was made Tuesday by the Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of the center, Chechile said. The center will learn if it has won the grant by May 2.

The grant money is being made available through a state program to provide services to schools with low-income students and their families. And, for the first time, the center is also looking for help from private foundations or corporate sponsorships.