PICO-UNION : AmeriCorps to Aid Cleanup Effort

Eleven members of AmeriCorps, the national service organization, will give a boost to cleanup efforts here as part of Building Up Los Angeles, a federally funded program that provides assistance to blighted inner-city communities.

“We’re hoping to use them to help recruit new block captains,” said Gloria Soto of the Pico-Union Improvement Assn., one of the seven groups that will receive assistance from AmeriCorps members.

The AmeriCorps members, primarily young adults from central Los Angeles, will be paid a weekly stipend of $170 as they spend a year assisting local community improvement groups. At the end of the year and after each member has completed 1,700 hours of community service, they will each be awarded $4,725 for college.

Soto’s group will also enlist their services for community beautification projects such as graffiti removal and tree planting, she said.

Other local organizations that will benefit from their service include the Angelica Lutheran Church, which the volunteers will assist in re-establishing an after-school tutoring and recreation program for youth.

AmeriCorps members will also assist the L.A. Alliance for a Drug Free Community in outreach efforts; help the Neighborhood Recovery Program of the Los Angeles Housing department identify slum buildings and educate tenants about their rights; and provide assistance to nonprofit developers New Economics for Women, the Belmont High School educational cluster and the Constitutional Rights Foundation, said Tony Madril, who coordinates the Pico-Union members.

Among the workers is Helen Macias, who, at 48, is an exception to the average age of 19 for workers in AmeriCorps, the service program started in 1994 by the Clinton Administration. Macias said she is eager to exchange community service in her neighborhood for a chance to go back to school and eventually become a social worker.

The former administrative assistant and paralegal quit her job to join the program.

“I wanted to help the community after the riots,” she said. “When I came here from New York in 1971, L.A. was a wonderful place to live, but since then it has deteriorated. I want to make a better L.A.”

In total, 120 AmeriCorps members have been assigned to several low-income neighborhoods throughout the city as part of Building Up Los Angeles, including South-Central and Watts, Northeast Los Angeles, Central City South, Hollywood and East Los Angeles.

Building Up Los Angeles came together in April, 1993, beginning as a federal pilot project called “Summer of Service” in which community service workers were sent to blighted areas to assist community improvement organizations. The pilot project was so successful that it was extended into the current program.

Information: (213) 384-8127.