Moms’ Moment

The outdoor stage at the Jewish Home for the Aging was shared on Mother’s Day by three schoolchildren who won a “Why My Mom Is the Best” essay contest and a U.S. senator honored as the home’s celebrity mother of the year.

Meanwhile, a band kept a crowd of about 1,500 tapping its toes as they ate lunch at shaded tables while others danced in front of the stage.

“You bet I’m enjoying myself,” said Etta Goldman, 87, who has lived at the Reseda Boulevard facility for eight years. She waved her hands as the band played “Macarena.” “It’s fantastic,” Goldman said.

Love and togetherness were the day’s message for Denise Oppenheimer, 24. She came from San Francisco to celebrate the holiday with her grandmother, Ethel Tobin, 95, and the rest of their family.

“My grandma is here with her only three grandchildren and her only daughter,” Oppenheimer said. “Everybody’s together. . . . There’s a lot of love.”

The annual Mother’s Day event is meant to do just that: bring together about 700 residents--average age 90--who live in two facilities, with their families and friends, said Meyer Gottlieb, the event’s chairman.

This year, to reach out to others, the committee that organizes the celebration added the essay contest and a celebrity mom award, which was given to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

“We got the community to participate,” said Gottlieb, president of the Samuel Goldwyn Co., whose mother, Nina Gottlieb, 85, has lived at the home for 10 years. “We wanted kids to think about their mothers and aging.”

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The essay contest was publicized at Los Angeles elementary and middle schools, according to organizers. There were three categories by grade levels, and about 600 entries were received.

During a break in the music, the three children who won and their mothers were honored onstage. They won tickets to Disneyland, 4-pound boxes of candy and dinner with their mothers.

Their schools were each given $500 by the home.

The announcer read portions of the essays.

Sarah Kate McGowan, 12, a sixth-grader at John Thomas Dye School in Los Angeles, praised her mother, Bella, for driving her to school before going to work.

“Even though there is a carpool that could take us most days, she wants to be with us to start the day,” Sarah wrote.

For Rebecca Rothberg, 9, a fourth-grader at Sinai Akiba Academy in Los Angeles, mom Deborah’s support in times of crisis is key.

“When I am laying on my bed crying she stands in the doorsteps waiting to cheer me up,” Rebecca wrote.

The youngest winner, Sandy Avalos, 7, a second-grader at Vintage Magnet School in North Hills, said no one can top her mother, Catalina:

“She is my best mom. I like her voice. I like her smell and her hair.”

Between presenting the parents and kids certificates and Mother’s Day gifts and being honored herself, Boxer spoke to the crowd.

“Without my mom and dad I never would be in the Senate,” she said. “They gave me something that moms and dads give their children: belief in yourself.”

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Boxer was chosen as the home’s celebrity mother because of her work in the Senate promoting legislation that favors the children and elderly, Gottlieb said.

Offstage, the three moms extolled by their daughters said the recognition of their children’s essays made this Mother’s Day extra special.

“I started crying,” Deborah Rothberg said about reading the essay for the first time a few days ago.

Tears also flowed for Bella McGowan: “I could not stop crying until the following day,” McGowan said. “It’s the [mother-daughter] relationship I always dreamed of.”