Volunteerism in Valley Plunges After Quake

Count hundreds of Girl Scouts and Girl Scout hopefuls among the victims of the Jan. 17 earthquake. Ever since then, the number of adults offering to lead and help with troops in the Central and West Valley are down by almost 75%, according to the San Fernando Valley Girl Scout Council.

The situation is much the same for the Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council and the Volunteer Center of the San Fernando Valley, the Valley’s main clearinghouse for people who want to donate their efforts.

Throughout the Valley, many organizations that want your time more than your money are reporting an alarming drop-off following the Northridge quake--a trend unmatched in metropolitan Los Angeles with the exception of a few organizations. Although all charities have been hurt significantly by the lingering recession, Valley organizations that rely on committed volunteers say they are not getting nearly enough help.

“Inquiries are down and we’re attributing it partly to people’s financial situation and their emotional situation after the quake,” said Amy Diamond of Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles. “They’re just not feeling very giving right now, I think.”

At Big Sisters of Los Angeles, administrators said they are feeling the same pinch in both the Valley and the rest of Los Angeles. Inquiries about the program, which serves about 325 girls in Los Angeles County, are down about 13% from this time last year, said Carol Holben, the Big Sisters’ director of program services.

“People still have the impulse, but a lot of their initial desire to help was funneled into agencies that helped with the quake,” Holben said. “It’s been harder for people to make an ongoing commitment because it’s like their lives are still uncertain.”

And for the Valley, where there has been a growing reliance on volunteers to supplement shrinking social service budgets, the situation is particularly stark.

“We never had sufficient social and human services to begin with in the area,” said Sally Hoover, a senior planner with United Way’s North Angeles Region, which includes most of the areas hardest hit by the quake. “But now the needs are even greater and the gap between the two are wider. The numbers of volunteers are dropping off at a time when the needs are high.”

In an average year, the Valley’s Volunteer Center places as many as 50,000 individuals, groups and corporate teams with the organizations that need their help.

But since the quake, numbers of new recruits have tumbled 20% to 25%, estimated Alethea Ludowitz, one of the center’s directors. In contrast, the Volunteer Center of Los Angeles has seen little in the way of drop-off, said Sandra Lopez, director of Volunteer Services.

For individual volunteers between 18 and 55, the drop has been even more pronounced, according to the Volunteer Center’s Carlos Lopez.

One reason is that the traditional source of recruits--the more affluent West Valley--was among the hardest hit by the temblor. People who used to have the most time on their hands to help, he said, are the same ones who now are forced to use every spare moment to reconstruct their own lives.

The Girl Scouts in the West Valley are perhaps the worst off--in contrast to the Angeles Girl Scout Council, which serves metropolitan Los Angeles and had a only a three-week drop-off in new recruits following the quake. Likewise, the Boy Scouts in the Valley and elsewhere were largely unaffected.

Scouting requires an ever-replenished pool of volunteers because groups are small, local and fluid. Girl Scout troops are usually composed of 15 girls, two or three leaders and two to four support volunteers, said Chris Edwards, the San Fernando Valley Council’s membership and marketing director.

In a typical period of January through May, the Valley’s Girl Scout Council needs 100 to 200 new troop leaders and support volunteers from Northridge and surrounding areas to help serve the Valley Council’s 7,000 girls. But from the quake until now, Edwards said, no more than 50 have volunteered.

“People are recuperating, they’re catching their breath,” Edwards said. “But Girl Scouting is in the business of serving girls and meeting their needs. These numbers mean there are 1,000 or more girls that didn’t get touched this year.”

The Valley’s Interfaith Council, a network of about 270 congregations that run a variety of volunteer programs, has experienced a 20% decrease in volunteers following the quake. The new recruits who have appeared have not made up for those people forced to leave the group to deal with the destruction wrought to their own lives, said Barry Smedberg, the council’s executive director.

Among the casualties is the Meals on Wheels program, which is being cut back. The number of volunteers who use their own cars to deliver meals to people with disabilities has declined 35% to 40%. To compensate, Smedberg said, those remaining volunteers have been asked to double their load and work longer hours. New clients requesting meals have been turned down.

“In some cases we’ve had to deliver every other day to at least get them some meals,” Smedberg said. “They probably don’t eat that day” when there is no delivery, he said.

New recruits for Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles, which will serve about 800 boys this year, have also declined. In 1993, the group received 321 calls in the first part of the year from men wanting to be part of the program. This year, they have gotten 225, said spokeswoman Nancy Rose Dufford.

Last year, the Valley office had eight inquiries per month. This year, the group has gotten an average of one per month. If all the men are approved, that means that the Valley will have 12 new Big Brothers at the end of the year as opposed to 96.

“Even some of our currently matched Big Brothers are trying to get their homes back together and don’t have the opportunity to be with their little brothers as much,” Dufford said.

After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Dufford said, her office had a surge of requests to help. But with this latest disaster, Dufford is begging.

“Please, we need Big Brothers,” Dufford said. “There are a lot of kids waiting. If the boys in our program don’t get good role models, who are they going to look to?”

As they go about trying to provide the services that often serve as a crucial buffer between declining income and depravation, the leaders of the hard-pressed volunteer groups say they are trying to keep a positive outlook.

Ludowitz of the Valley’s Volunteer Center said nonprofit organizations have become increasingly resilient in the past few, tough years. And Smedberg of the Interfaith Council said he takes solace in seeing his own troops pull through their troubles and return to ease the burdens of others.

“In the back of my head, I sense it’s temporary,” Smedberg said. “I’m beginning to see some folks come back who weren’t available after the quake, but it’s not nearly where it was.

“We hope its temporary, but I don’t know.”