Student-Aid Group Starts First Major Fund Drive

When UCLA film student Juan Carlos Ayala was in town last week to shoot scenes for a movie titled “Vida,” an educational film that is his senior thesis, he reflected on the challenges of being not only its writer but also its director and producer.

Sheer determination was a big factor in getting the Santa Ana native and his film crew here for the project. But Ayala, 24, also got help from the Santa Ana Education Foundation, which gave him a $4,000 scholarship.

“If it wasn’t for these funds,” Ayala said, “I would not have been able to complete my first year” of film school.

Robert W. Balen, president of the private nonprofit organization that raises funds for Santa Ana Unified School District, cites Ayala’s situation as an example of how outside money can benefit students and graduates of the district.

Stories like Ayala’s will be told and retold as the foundation, established three years ago, launches its first major fund-raising drive, with a goal of $100,000 to benefit the county’s largest--and one of its neediest--school districts.

But the campaign, the highlight of which is a benefit mariachi show May 31 and June 1, is starting under a cloud.

The foundation received an offer from Jim Duran, regional manager of corporate affairs for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Fountain Valley, for his company to foot the bill for printing 3,500 concert brochures.

“And we put him down for it,” school Supt. Al Mijares said.

In return for the donation, which could have been worth several thousand dollars, the tobacco company’s name likely would have appeared in the programs.

In a school district that was one of 12 nationwide chosen to participate in an antitobacco conference call with President Clinton last year, there was a loud public outcry over the tobacco company’s offer.

That prompted the foundation to establish a policy prohibiting donations from alcohol and tobacco companies, meaning that the R.J. Reynolds offer would have to be rejected.

“We stumbled a little bit with the issue of the cigarette thing,” said Amin David, president of the Latino advocacy group Los Amigos of Orange County. The new policy has merit, he said, because association with tobacco products “may have been harmful.”

David and others say they must now make up for the lost tobacco money, but they insist that the controversy will not hurt the cause in the long run. One school official even acknowledged that the publicity generated by the issue has raised the foundation’s profile in the community.

Previously, Balen said, the foundation’s most extensive fund-raising efforts were letter-writing campaigns asking for donations. That and personal requests have brought in about $150,000 over the last three years.

The biggest challenge in putting on events like the mariachi shows, which the foundation hopes to establish as an annual event, is recruiting enough volunteers to get all the work done, veteran fund-raisers say.

In Santa Ana, Balen said, the involvement of community leaders such as David and Duran, who is serving as liaison with the mariachi performers, has been critical.

“We have a lot of outside support,” Balen said. “Leaders in the Hispanic community thought this was a good time and a good event to get behind.”

Corporate benefactors of the concerts will receive blocks of tickets, while others can purchase them for $25 to $100 for each day, Balen said. The performances will be at the 1,500-seat Santa Ana High School auditorium.

The biggest gift to date to help with the show is a $20,000 contribution from the Northgate Gonzalez Market chain.

With more than two months to go until the benefit, Balen and others say they are optimistic that the foundation will meet, if not exceed, its goal.

“The idea has crystallized,” said David, the person who approached school district officials with the mariachi concert idea. “Our next task is overflow audiences at the concert halls, and I’m going to go knocking.”

Moral support is also coming from people like film student Ayala who have benefited from foundation money.

The organization “gave me the best assistance,” Ayala said. “It gave me a head start.”