League Helps Expand Envelope of Volunteerism

A group of San Pedro women has been operating a post office on 8th Street ever since local residents and business owners first filtered through its doors in 1964.

But not one of the 26 women from the San Pedro Assistance League has been paid for her work in 30 years. The league, which runs the only contract post office in the United States staffed solely by volunteers, raises money for needy families in the community.

Next door to the post office, more volunteers work in the league’s gift shop. Money is also generated by an additional five auxiliaries that organize fund-raising events every year.

The San Pedro chapter of the assistance league has 528 members who have contributed 160,000 hours of their time over the past three years.

Funds generated since the chapter’s founding in 1936 have allowed it to create and continue supporting four local philanthropies: the Frances Johnson Dental Center; Operation School Bell, which supplies school clothes to needy children; Operation Hug, which buys teddy bears for traumatized children, and the Weavers, a service for the visually impaired.

And it’s big business.

“The amount we received for the post office contract last year was enough to run the dental service,” President Sandy Hollingsworth said. The Frances Johnson Dental Center on Deep Valley Road provides dental care for children at a cost to their families of only $5. It handled more than 2,000 appointments last year.

Across the street from the post office and gift shop, new children’s underwear, shoes, dresses, sweats and school uniforms are stacked in a storage room.

This is where 1,152 needy children were outfitted last year through Operation School Bell. Each child got two sets of clothing, a grooming kit and a backpack.

It costs $50 to clothe each child, and it is money well spent, Hollingsworth said, to help children attend one of the 50 schools in the area that refer them to the assistance league.

“Some of these kids have never had brand-new clothes,” she said. “Many of our referrals come when a neighbor will call the school and say, ‘How come this kid isn’t going to school?’

“It’s because they don’t have any clothes to wear, or one will go to school and a sibling will the next day because they’re sharing clothes,” she said.

The women also organize Operation Hug. In 1993, local police and medical professionals distributed 715 teddy bears to children suffering from accidents or sexual abuse, Hollingsworth said.

Then there’s the Weavers, a club that began in 1936 for visually handicapped adults who need a hot meal prepared or want to enjoy some recreational activities.

All these community services will come under one roof by November. A little farther up 8th Street, where the original post office stood, a building is being remodeled at a cost of $1.6 million.

Hollingsworth said all the money has been raised by donations. Two-thirds of the cost has come from the pockets of league members.