Making the Big Difference

She didn’t know what it was or what caused it, but even at age 11 Denise Marquez sensed there was a hole in her life. So she did what she had seen others do when they needed something. She opened the Yellow Pages.

Denise came across a listing for Big Sisters of L.A., and she dialed the number. She had called a couple other agencies but they didn’t seem interested in talking to a child, but this person was different.

“I was depressed,” Denise says. “You wouldn’t think that a little kid could be in that situation. I just thought, ‘What’s the use? What’s the purpose of life?’ Little kids shouldn’t be thinking like that.”

She asked her mother, Maria Marquez, if she would enroll her in the program--one of several in the Los Angeles area that partners adults and youth. Maria knew there were many things in life she wanted to give her two children but couldn’t. An even greater concern was that there were many things in life she wanted to protect her children from and in that regard she worried that perhaps she couldn’t.

“Every parent wants what’s best for their children,” says Maria, 44, a part-time teacher’s assistant. “It was something Denise wanted very much.”

For eight months, Denise’s name moved its way up the waiting list, and finally the telephone rang. Cindy Wagner was new to the program. She, too, had discovered a hole in her life.

Wagner was recently divorced, and the thought of not having children of her own prompted her to become a Big Sister. In December 1993, the two met. It was, Wagner says, love at first sight.

She could see through Denise’s behavior, which had her sitting in the principal’s office much of the time. Volunteerism had been an important part of Wagner’s life since high school, and she decided that what Denise needed more than help was the opportunity to help others. Wagner signed the two of them up as volunteers for the L.A. Marathon, Heal the Bay, Toys for Tots. They helped build Rose Bowl floats and worked at the L.A. Mission.

And for her work, Denise will be honored Friday--National Philanthropy Day--as L.A. County youth volunteer of the year in a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.

“What stood out about Denise was the incredible wherewithal for someone that age to select the Big Sisters program out of the Yellow Pages and take action as well as the breadth of her volunteer work,” says Patty Oertel, executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Management and chairwoman of this year’s event.

Wagner showed Denise another side of life, beyond the tough streets of her Lennox neighborhood. She explained how full of possibilities life was and how Denise had control over her life, her future, no matter how difficult circumstances seemed.

“They called me the devil in elementary school,” says Denise, now 15 and a sophomore at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Inglewood. “It was like a joke because I was always in trouble and in detention. I really didn’t care about anything. I felt like I was hurting inside, so everybody else should hurt too so they could understand me more.”

Even now, there are moments when Denise isn’t sure whether she is strong enough in her convictions to avoid the trappings that claim so many of our young.

“There have been times when I just wanted to run away. There have been times when I wanted to die, so it would all go away. Everybody would say, ‘She’s so innocent,’ but I always felt sad inside. I didn’t understand why I was always getting in trouble, why I was being mean to people. I could have done drugs and alcohol, and there’s still a chance now, but I know it’s not what I want. I know I can be a nice person, and I’ve learned what a nice person does.”

She has seen more death than most people see in a lifetime, and she writes about them in her journals:

A friend that cares,

A friend that shares,

A friend that loves,

A friend that cries,

A friend that dies.

I miss you Jose.

Jose De La Paz, 16, was gunned down while riding his bicycle two blocks away from Denise’s home last year. Police believe he was mistaken for a gang member. Denise still writes to him in her journals.

Writing is her passion. She hopes to be a journalist or writer. She writes in bed late at night, listening to the radio, sometimes calling in to dedicate songs to friends. Or she sits on her back stairs quietly writing down her thoughts. Sometimes she finds poetry in her life, or she follows her imagination and documents the journey into moments of joy and darkness.

Sometimes, she says, she talks to herself through writing. She looks out the window and sees a cinder-block wall where Jose De La Paz would sit and wait for her to return home from school. Whatever image comes to mind is what she writes about.

“Sometimes,” she says, “I cry though my writing.”

*

To be forgotten is painful to one who forgets no one. Denise writes letters to friends a couple blocks away as well as to friends she hasn’t seen in years. Her letters are gilded in stickers or pictures cut out from magazines. Sometimes she puts candy in them.

“It’s important to let friends know that you believe in them, that you won’t forget them and you’ll be there for them,” she says.

Earlier this year, Denise wrote to her father, who has not been a part of her life, but she hasn’t heard back. Maybe, she says, he moved. They did not meet until she was 11.

She keeps every letter or card she receives and carefully files them in a drawer in her bedroom, where she has a box filled with college catalogs and a hamster named Reality.

There are stuffed animals on her bed, four mirrors so her friends can all put on makeup at the same time.

There are copies of “Romeo and Juliet,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Her bedroom is her favorite space in the world. It is orderly and constantly in transition. Denise rearranges it regularly. Nothing remains the same.

Nor does she.

“Her self-esteem has gone up tremendously,” her mother says. “She has high hopes for herself. I’m proud of her.”

Denise also has helped put together Easter baskets for homeless children. She is a weekly volunteer at the Lennox Public Library and is involved in California One on One, a program that brings together young people to discuss ways to improve the lives of inner-city youth.

“A lot of people watch the news and complain about things, but they don’t do anything about it,” she says. “There’s always going to be violence in the world. Everybody always wants to be better than everybody else, and that’s what leads to it. Nobody can stop it, but everybody can do something to help.”

Wagner, 40, of Hermosa Beach, has helped Denise through troubled moments. She has introduced her to the good feeling of working hard, not for money or attention but because “It’s the right thing to do.”

Through the Big Sisters program and volunteerism, Wagner has changed Denise’s life. Denise now has a 3.6 grade-point average.

“The main thing I want her to learn is to take care of your fellow person,” Wagner says. “That’s why I take her to do volunteer work. I want her to know that the world doesn’t revolve around you, no matter how good or bad your life is. It’s not about you.”

The two have been to the snow and to the beach. They have been ice skating and sometimes they just sit and talk.

“I have never seen our relationship as volunteer work. She’s the kid I never had.”

A year and a half ago, Wagner, who works as a national sales manager in the clothing industry, was offered a promotion that required moving to New York. It was either take the promotion or find another job.

“I couldn’t leave her,” Wagner says. “No way.”

* There are about 90 girls on the waiting list for Big Sisters of L.A. Denise’s brother, Richard Mejia, 12, is one of about 300 boys on the waiting list for Catholic Big Brothers. He has been waiting a year.