LOS ANGELES : Donors Help Make Dream of Helping Youth a Reality

Flash back to a year ago: Chilton Alphonse sat long hours in his office with a phone glued to one ear, trying to drum up last-minute ticket sales to politicians, friends and everyone else he knew for a fund-raising banquet.

His Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation was in dire financial straits, an all-too-common situation since the center opened 10 years ago.

A small but steady influx of donations, chief among them a $45,000 boost from Shell Oil Co., has allowed the nationally recognized foundation to not only pay its bills, but also make plans to purchase its headquarters building at 4828 Crenshaw Blvd. About $20,000 of the donation will go toward the $275,000 purchase price.

“Things are looking pretty good now, for the first time in a long time,” Alphonse said. “I can see the shape of things a lot more clearly.”

In all, Shell has contributed more than $100,000 to the foundation’s most critical service: a continuation school that allows youths to complete their high school education.

“This foundation is the perfect match for what we wanted to do, which is focus on education and youth,” said Bob Russ, Shell’s community relations manager in Los Angeles. “We may not be giving huge amounts of money, but we are making a difference.”

The foundation also offers parenting classes, field trips, sports such as weight training and other programs to its young clientele.

With about $100,000 in city and county grants--and later $70,000 that he won in a state lottery--Alphonse launched the foundation to make good on a dream of helping neighborhood youth. Though the center has been lauded as a model grass-roots effort, it has also suffered from funding shortages.

Though the fiscal battle may be temporarily won, battles of a different kind may be in store.

The center’s school, along with 10 other alternative education sites sponsored by the school district, are in danger of being eliminated in the latest round of proposed state budget cuts.

“I saw the kinds of kids Chilton was taking, the kind kicked out of high school and nobody would take,” Russ said. “I knew it was here that we could really make a difference.”