Center ‘Family’ Finds a Temporary Home

One day after a gunman sprayed the North Valley Jewish Community Center with 70 rounds from an assault weapon, 3-year-old David Macales returned to the makeshift center next door armed with his own security system--Mom.

“He said, ‘You’ll have to hold my hand because I think they’ll be shooting at my school today,’ ” Granada Hills resident Beverly Macales said Wednesday as her son played ring-around-Mommy. He never let go of her hand.

David had been at the community center Tuesday when bullets allegedly fired by Buford O. Furrow of Washington state shattered glass, wood and everyone’s sense of calm.

“He’s still very nervous,” Macales said.

The center, where David has been enrolled for four months, was described Wednesday as a “magnet,” “our social core” and “a big cousins’ club.”

It was that sense of family and support that drew more than two dozen parents and their children to return to the temporary center set up next door at a combination Episcopal church and synagogue.

In the sun-dappled courtyard of the Saint Andrew and Saint Charles Episcopal Church, children laughed and played kickball. Parents hugged parents. Children hugged counselors from Camp Valley Chai, the center’s popular summer camp program, which is the largest of the seven local JCC summer camps. And people talked about standing firm in the face of terrorism.

“There’s no way I could leave the place,” said Macales as her 2-year-old son, Aaron, snuggled in her arms. “This could have happened anyplace.”

She and other parents had arrived shortly before the 11 a.m. opening of the camp. Staff members and counselors planned to provide psychological services and therapeutic activities, such as arts and crafts, music and singing.

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For Blanca Barnett, whose not-quite-7-year-old daughter, Sasha, has attended the summer camp for three years, returning Wednesday was a form of medicine.

“I believe in immediate healing,” said Barnett, who drives in daily from Van Nuys to bring her daughter to the summer program, which typically attracts more than 200 youngsters. “I wanted [the center] to continue today so the kids can get back to routine.

“I felt very secure about bringing her, until yesterday. And honestly, I still do. They did a wonderful job of protecting the kids.”

The North Valley JCC has been a family and community focal point for about 45 years, officials said. Adults who grew up attending the center’s swim classes or arts programs now send their children.

“This is a family coming back together,” said Jeff Rouss, executive vice president of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, the parent organization. “This is their home. It’s a big cousins’ club.”

The center provides programming for everyone from preschoolers to seniors.

Barnett and Macales both described the center, where duct tape covered the pockmarked walls Wednesday, as very homey, very welcome, very open.

It was that openness that apparently allowed Furrow to stroll into the lobby of the center and open fire. And that openness may be one of the casualties.

Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and a private security firm hired by the JCC patrolled the makeshift center, which the church shares with Temple Beth Torah. Rouss declined to reveal long-range security plans.

Rouss would not say when the center would reopen, but the maintenance supervisor said cleanup had already begun.

Its former director noted that, a week after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, the North Valley JCC reopened its doors. Parents were waiting to entrust the care of their children to center staff.

“For many of those families, it was the first time they had been separated after the earthquake,” said Dale Glasser, director from 1992 to 1996. “I think that really showed the degree of trust in the center.”