Ideas, Time of Award Finalists Benefit Valley

If you happen to bump into Herman Berman, chances are you’ll find him collecting, sorting or delivering food bound for homeless shelters, schools and food banks around the Valley.

Accustomed to loading 250 bagels at a time into the back of his car, the 77-year-old retired jeweler says that schlepping baked goods and canned food around town is pure pleasure. It must be. He does it nearly full time.

“When I was young, my parents had a rough time paying the bills and we kids worked hard to keep body and soul together,” the Sherman Oaks resident said. “There were times my mom and dad went to bed hungry so we could eat. I don’t want other children to go through that.”

Berman’s longtime commitment to feeding the hungry--both as chairman of the United Jewish Welfare Fund and as past president of the Encino B’nai B’rith--earned him one of the five finalists’ slots for this year’s prestigious Fernando Award, which annually honors one Valley person for outstanding community service.

Berman, a Brooklyn native, is no stranger to social activism. At 14, he collected money on street corners for victims of the Spanish Civil War, and he was a major fund-raiser for Israel in the days before the 1967 war.

More than 20 years ago, he organized the Encino B’nai B’rith’s food distribution program. Last year, he founded the Bagel Brigade, a cadre of volunteers who collect day-old baked goods from supermarkets, bakeries and bagel shops and distribute them around the Valley seven days a week.

“I’m very proud of the Fernando Award nomination,” Berman said. “I’m equally proud on behalf of all the volunteers who help with my projects. They make it all possible.”

*

Robert D. Voit, another Fernando Award finalist, was thinking of ways to improve his West Valley community when, in 1989, he called for a neighborhood forum at which homeowners groups and civic leaders were asked to list the area’s most pressing needs in order of priority.

“The overwhelming response was to create an after-school program for kids in the area,” Voit said. “A Boys & Girls Club hit the bull’s-eye; it was right on target.”

Through Voit’s efforts, the West Valley Boys & Girls Club opened its doors six years later at Calvert Street Elementary School in Woodland Hills. A second club, serving older children and housed at the Columbus Middle School campus in Canoga Park, opened in November, with the two locations serving about 750 children.

Bob Gross, executive director of the Calvert Street club, said Voit’s “selling of the club and what we stand for helped get corporations involved. He made it a success.”

Voit, 58, whose company developed Warner Center in Woodland Hills, also co-founded the Warner Center Assn., an organization that brought ride-sharing to the West Valley in 1980.

The longtime activist was instrumental in bringing an innovative child-care program to the Prudential corporate center in Woodland Hills, and he has been a major supporter of the Valley Cultural Center, which offers free summer concerts at Warner Park.

“I’m deeply pleased that people would want to enter my name alongside those who have been so important to the Valley in terms of their volunteerism,” Voit said. “It’s quite gratifying.”

*

Next week: Fernando Award finalists Bob Scott, Rickey Gelb and Walter Mosher.