Seeking Answers to Crime, Violence : Conference: Coalition founded after 10 Pasadena youngsters were shot on Halloween sponsors gathering, attracting 800 people.

Eleven months ago, outraged Pasadena residents spontaneously organized after three boys were shot and killed in a Halloween ambush by alleged gang members.

On Saturday, the fruits of that initial meeting were displayed as a new nonprofit agency--boosted by $360,000 in donations--put on a daylong anti-violence conference attended by nearly 800 people.

Sponsored by the Coalition for a Non-Violent City, the meeting at the Pasadena Center drew a broad mix of participants, including grass-roots organizers, City Council members, city employees, church and social service agency workers, and young people from Pasadena’s minority neighborhoods. In small panel sessions and workshops they sought to devise solutions to crime and violence.

Shirley Adams, executive director of the Pasadena-Foothill branch of the Los Angeles Urban League and one of the coalition founders, said: “Pasadena has been a tale of two cities. It is not today. It is a city coming together.”

Adams and other coalition organizers said the group’s work over the 11 months could serve as a model for other cities and agencies.

The coalition came into being after George Regas, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, called a community meeting that for the first time drew together members from all of Pasadena’s diverse communities and organizations. In May, the group became a legal nonprofit corporation, funded by a recent $100,000 grant from the Irvine Foundation, a previous $250,000 allocation from the city of Pasadena, and $10,000 from individuals and businesses.

Of the city money, $70,000 has been given to 17 youth programs. All the grant amounts have been $5,000 or less, said Tim Safford, a coalition member.

The grants funded smaller organizations that would otherwise lack the staff or knowledge to apply for city or state money, Safford said.

He said a $5,000 grant to the Grace Bible Community Church has resulted in a partnership in which youths from Pasadena’s minority northwest neighborhood are bused to a Presbyterian church outside their neighborhood for basketball games, dinner and tutoring.

The group came into being last year after 10 boys returning from a Halloween party were gunned down by revenge-seeking gang members who mistook the youngsters for rival gang members. Seven boys were wounded and three died: Edgar Evans, 13, Stephen Coats and Reggie Crawford, both 14. Five alleged gang members await trial in Pasadena Superior Court.