Offers of Help Pouring in for Vandalized Youth Club

After learning that vandals had ransacked the Boys & Girls Club over the weekend, residents and community groups came to the rescue Tuesday with offers of money, furniture and volunteers.

“People from the city have been asking, ‘Can we volunteer? What can we do? How many people do you need?’ ” said the club’s program director, Denise Duarte, whose office had received nearly 50 calls by midafternoon from concerned parties. The facility on Casey Road serves about 120 children a day.

“It’s been a boost to our morale to have so much of the community back us up with encouraging phone calls,” Duarte said.

Intruders pried open a steel mesh net and a latched window during the weekend and trashed the newly refurbished building, police said.

In addition to blowing up children’s videocassettes in the microwave and flooding the floor with water, the vandals scribbled messages on the walls and splashed paint on the furniture, walls and carpet.

The intruders stole two computers, a printer and a phone. Club officials Tuesday also discovered that one of their 35-millimeter cameras--recently donated to the children’s photo club--was stolen and another was destroyed.

Allyson Gold, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo, said the incident in Moorpark was an indicator of the changing times.

“It’s really unsettling,” she said, “because I believe there was a time in our nation’s history--and the Boys & Girls Club has been around for 100 years--when the Boys & Girls Club and churches were sort of off limits from vandalism and crime, and it makes me sad that I see that’s not the case anymore.

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“It’s a reminder that it is all the more important to do what we can so we can teach kids some values and instill in them the basics of good citizenship,” Gold said.

Gold’s club in Camarillo and most other branches in Ventura County have offered help to get the Moorpark club back on its feet.

Representatives from the Simi Valley club said they would allow children from Moorpark to use their facility if needed. Area businesses have posted electronic messages in their offices asking for donations to help the club. Other groups have offered volunteer time to clean up the club.

“They do so much out there with so little and hopefully this will not set them back,” said Rudy Gonzales, Southern California Edison’s region manager in the Thousand Oaks office. “There’s a lot of dedicated people in the community willing to help and we’re just one of those willing to help out.”

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Edison plans to send 15 to 20 employees to possibly help clean and repaint the splattered walls Sept. 6.

The United Way of Ventura County on Sept. 20 will do its part to restore the Moorpark Club.

The Moorpark group could not do much cleaning until insurance adjusters visited the club this morning to assess the damage. Police initially estimated the damage at about $30,000, but club officials said it might cost double that to restore the building to its original condition.

On Tuesday, chairs and games splattered with paint were placed on top of damaged pool tables, and three high-powered fans whirled away to dry up some of the water that flooded the building after the vandals plugged the sinks.

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In addition to computers, the club is in desperate need of children’s games and supplies--everything from baseball gloves to jigsaw puzzles--destroyed by the vandals.

“The hardest part is sitting here and staring at the walls and remembering how it was when we first came,” said Duarte as she stood in the recreation room with walls that had been splashed with pink paint.

In May, the children came into a club with new furniture, carpets, clean walls and a new roof. The group had spent years to raise $200,000 to spruce up the building they bought from the Moorpark Unified School District in 1991.

“We had a place we were proud of,” Duarte said.

Police are knocking on doors and interviewing residents in hopes of finding the culprits.