Panorama City : Center to Hold Meal to Filipino-Americans

For more than a year now, the San Fernando Valley Community Care Center in Panorama City has been providing food, legal advice and medical assistance to the more than 20,000 Filipino-Americans in the San Fernando Valley.

On Sunday, the center will feed more than 700 people with the help of local Catholic churches. The meal will follow a Simbang Gabi, meaning “evening service,” where prayers and hymns are offered in Tagalog and other Filipino dialects, as well as in English.

The center, which offers programs under the auspices of the Filipino-American Assn. of USA Inc., is the first of its kind in the Valley to serve the disadvantaged portion of the Filipino-American community. Filipino-Americans are the largest Asian ethnic group in Los Angeles County, according to the 1990 census.

“We focus on Filipinos, but we serve everyone,” said volunteer Flor Bustos.

Information services are available in English, Spanish, Tagalog and the five main Filipino dialects.

Bustos said 12 volunteers help at least 100 residents a week with problems from domestic abuse to nutrition concerns.

Most of the clients are veterans and elderly citizens who need help dealing with government benefits and civil rights issues, Bustos said. But the center also brings residents together by sponsoring bingo games and luncheons and by taking them to tapings of television sitcoms.

The services are provided solely through donations, said volunteer executive director Lydia Contreras.

Residents can stop by the center at 13550 Roscoe Blvd. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Tuesday. On Tuesdays, workshops on nutrition, safety, domestic abuse and other topics are held at the auditorium of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, 7800 Vineland Ave. in Sun Valley.