PLAY AID
With more than 1,000 youths waiting to get into the Challengers Boys and Girls Club on Vermont Avenue and 50th Street in South-Central Los Angeles, expansion was desperately needed.
Club officials had raised $70,000 of the $100,000 needed to build a new playground. This week, the Los Angeles City Council voted to kick in the final $30,000 that will enable the youth club to complete the playground within two weeks.
Laura Peterson, chief planning officer of the club, said a celebration for the new playground is planned June 18. The playground will help the center increase its capacity to 5,000.
The playground is being built on the site where five homes once stood along 50th and 51st streets. The homes were bought and leveled at a cost of nearly $1 million. Most of the money was provided by the Whittier, Weingart, Ahmanson and Irvine foundations.
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