One Angel in Search of Another After Shop Saved From Fire

Jill Angel, manager of the American Cancer Society thrift shop in Northridge, hopes the man who saved the shop from an all-consuming fire will read this.

She has put a sign in the window asking the man to stop in to be properly thanked.

She says all the other tenants in the Northridge Garden Plaza would also like to thank him.

His actions may have saved the entire complex from going up in flames.

It seems a light fixture in the thrift shop’s window malfunctioned around midnight about a week ago. The man was walking by, saw the fire and called the Fire Department, which arrived moments later to put out the blaze.

“If he hadn’t called, our shop, and possibly all the rest of them, might have been destroyed,” Angel says. “We are grateful he made the call.”

Angel and her volunteers are no strangers to catastrophe, starting with the Northridge quake that shut down the shop.

“We were closed for two months because our shop suffered a lot of damage, and the problem was complicated when the complex owner declared bankruptcy,” Angel says.

She adds that the cancer society was able to reopen in March with the help of a donation from the National Charity League and the assistance of the Phoenix Home Life insurance company, the complex lender.

Then came the flood.

“A couple of weeks ago a water heater burst and flooded the shop,” says Angel. “All the new carpeting was ruined. The back of the shop was underwater.”

That repair had just been completed when she learned the Fire Department had come in the night and put out the fire. “The fire could have been so much worse,” says Angel, “if our angel hadn’t made that call.”

She says in spite of all the chaos, shop sales have been booming. “We normally raise about $200,000 a year for the cancer society and we think we will again this year,” she adds.

Angel says the spirit of the volunteers has been astonishing. “Many of them are still living out of trailers or completely displaced (because of the Jan. 17 earthquake), but they still come in to work at the shop.”

She adds that all the upheaval has been challenging and the shop’s survival is an inspiration to her.

The only real tragedy was loosing volunteer Sharon Englar who, with her husband, Phillip, were killed when their Northridge apartment collapsed during the quake.

Turning Idea Into Action for Plan to Help Homeless

In July, The Times ran an On the Issues column in which opinions on how to help the homeless were asked of some experts.

Barry Smedberg, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, came up with one of the more interesting and creative ideas.

In his response, he said more shelters were needed, but that would be an expensive proposition and that it would help, if for a start, each of the 270 church and temple members of his organization each adopted a homeless family.

He expanded on the idea to say that what the homeless need is not just a home or job, but also security, a sense that someone is there to talk to them.

Smedberg said: “They don’t have support mechanisms. Organizations for the homeless and religious congregations could see them through.”

Nice idea.

One of maybe a million floating around.

Smedberg, however, wasn’t satisfied just making the suggestion. He’s taken the first steps toward putting the plan into operation.

He says the Interfaith Council is working with other groups that have a similar plan in other areas. “They are giving us guidance in setting up the program in the San Fernando Valley,” Smedberg says.

“We have appointed Craig Morantz to head up our task force. Craig was an intern with us when he was at UCLA working on his master’s degree,” Smedberg adds.

“Once the program is finalized, we will contact our members and enlist their support in launching the plan throughout the Valley,” says the council director, adding that his group encompasses almost every religious persuasion in the area, and that many member congregations are already involved in the council’s outreach work.

“We run Meals on Wheels programs and help with other projects aimed at helping specific groups like the elderly, abused children and needy families,” he adds.

Smedberg, a Peace Corps alumnus and graduate in the psychology department of Texas A&M;, served as head of former Mayor Bradley’s volunteer organization and also ran the local Lutheran Social Service group for seven years.

Westways Celebrates With Congratulatory Pat on Back

Some folks think of Dutton’s as the Lourdes of literature, not just as a North Hollywood bookstore with its owner as the guy who grew up in, and took over, the family book biz.

These folks may be interested to know he went AWOL for several years in the late ‘60s.

Read all about it in the November issue of Westways magazine.

Westways is put out for members of the Automobile Club of Southern California, a precursor of that airborne phenomena known as the in-flight magazine.

With the November issue, Westways celebrates its 85th anniversary with a non-aerobic exercise: a look over the shoulder and a self-congratulatory pat on the back.

Westways has had, over the years, a goodly number of renowned contributors, including Ray Bradbury, William Saroyan, Carey McWilliam, Anais Nin, Jack Smith, John Espey, Carolyn See and Steve Erickson who wrote about growing up in the Valley in the 1950s.

It has also had some top-level editors, including founder Phil Townsend Hanna, the widely admired Frances Ring and the talent-collecting Larry Meyer.

Another editor, remembered kindly in the November issue as having guided the book during the late 1960s was none other than Davis Dutton, otherwise known, to the literary loiterers at Dutton’s bookstore, as Dave.

Overheard

“He’s got the personality of an armadillo and a golf swing that looks like he’s digging someone’s grave.”

Man to companion at Teru Sushi in Studio City about a candidate for a golf foursome the next day.