PAL for Life

While youths exchanged volleys in the sand nearby, Gabrielle Brooks, 17, explained why she got involved in a program meant to keep her out of trouble.

“Why go out into the woods and drink schnapps with friends?” Gabrielle asked. “It’s a lot more fun to go to the beach.”

Indeed, it may look like just another volleyball tournament at San Buenaventura State Beach. But the youths participating in the two-day clinic that got underway Tuesday are honing more than their volleyball skills.

They are polishing their life skills.

The sponsors of the clinic are hoping that the nearly 100 youths scampering in the sand will take away lifelong lessons on camaraderie and teamwork. The event and others sponsored by California Police Activities League are also meant to keep kids off the street.

“It gives you a better option,” said Gabrielle, who traveled to Ventura with about a dozen youths from Old Fort Ord, a suburb of Monterey.

She said a police officer got her interested in PAL.

“I was kickin’ it on the street with some friends, out past curfew,” she recounted. “A police officer pulled up and took down my name and number. I told her there was nothing to do in Fort Ord but hang out.”

Later, the same officer called her to tell her about a PAL program that had just started in her area.

“What we’re doing is primarily preventive,” said Robert Miller, executive director of the statewide PAL program, which is based in Oakland. “Instead of calling them ‘at-risk’ youths, we refer to them as kids who have an excessive amount of time on their hands. What we do is provide an alternative to antisocial activities.”

As dozens of white volleyballs sailed skyward, Mary Perez, 14, of Ventura, sat serenely at the shoreline.

Recently, Mary watched her good friend endure the death of an uncle who was shot and killed by a gang member’s bullet. Then another best buddy was expelled from school for getting into fights.

Mary herself is no stranger to trouble.

She said she was suspended from Ventura High School for five days a few months ago after disobeying orders by the principal to stay away from a problem student.

Barely a teenager and approaching the ninth grade, Mary felt that she had reached a fork in the road. She said PAL activities at the Westpark Community Center pointed her in the right direction.

“It is helping me,” Mary said. “I used to be a troublemaker but not anymore.”

Only students who stay in school and out of juvenile hall are qualified to participate in the several events and outings sponsored by PAL each year.

“PAL leaders have told me that these outings are a carrot to put in front of the kids to keep them in school,” said Jack Shu, superintendent of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, which hosted the volleyball event and participates in many other yearly PAL beach outings throughout the state.

PAL works in conjunction with parks, police and sheriff’s departments statewide. Those agencies go into their city’s communities and recruit youth--ages 9 to 18--who could benefit from PAL events, which range from volleyball clinics to basketball tournaments to camping trips.

“When you get them out of their home environment and they travel a distance away, it really opens their horizons,” Shu said.

Melyssa Campau, 10, and her 13-year-old sister, Jennifer, considered this week’s volleyball event a positive distraction to their chaotic daily lives in East Los Angeles.

Jennifer said her mother made her join PAL after she caught her ditching school.

“I lost my mom’s trust,” Jennifer said. “Now I want to be a role model for my younger sister. If I don’t do bad things, I get to do good things like coming here.”

Alex Blanco, a sheriff’s deputy in East Los Angeles, said he routinely recruits youths for the PAL program.

“I’ve caught kids going the wrong way,” he said. “This has reined them in.”