OXNARD : Boys & Girls Club Prepares for Fund-Raiser

An Austrian baby grand piano handcrafted in 1830 is one of nearly 200 items that will be auctioned to the highest bidders when the Boys & Girls Club of Oxnard holds its annual fund-raiser.

The auction and dinner, the center’s biggest fund-raiser of the year, is scheduled for April 30 at the South Oxnard Center, 200 E. Bard Road.

“We’ll have more than 40 (valuable) items like the baby grand piano, a 1950s jukebox, a Coke machine and a big-screen TV,” said Abe Oliveras, the Boys & Girls Club’s executive director.

“We’re getting good support, but now that we have two facilities, we need the community to really come out and support us,” Oliveras said.

Also scheduled to be auctioned are a 25-foot sailboat, a Hawaiian vacation package, weekend getaways to Santa Maria and Las Vegas, cellular telephones, and other items and services donated by local merchants.

The centers offer more than 1,500 members a variety of services, including youth-employment training, tutoring, summer camp, arts and crafts and recreational activities, Oliveras said.

“It gives them an opportunity they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Oliveras said of the programs. “It exposes them to other things instead of being on a street corner.”

About a dozen boys and girls sporting Oxnard Boys & Girls Club T-shirts earlier this week said they would be bored without the activities offered by the club.

“I’d be at home watching TV,” said 12-year-old Joey Madrid, a seventh-grader who has been a club member for the past year. “I have friends here to play pool with and do different kinds of stuff.”

Nine-year-old Vanessa Alvarez of Oxnard said the club gives her a place to spend time after school and on weekends.

“Sometimes it’s boring at home and there’s nothing to do,” she said.

On Friday, several young boys and girls spent the day at Magic Mountain, one of several field trips the club provides children throughout the year.

And earlier this month, Oliveras took one boy to see his first professional baseball game. “I just took it for granted that everyone had been to Dodger Stadium,” he said.

Members of the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Club of Oxnard said they hope to raise $50,000 or more at the fifth annual action.

“It’s realistic if we can get 110% support from the community,” said Michael Faulconer, an Oxnard architect who serves as a co-chairman on the board. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

Tickets for the fund-raiser are $50 each and can be purchased by calling the Boys & Girls Club of Oxnard at 488-5717.