Donor Answers Poor School’s Prayers

Los Angeles police have long been aware of the financial woes at San Miguel Elementary, a small Catholic school in a crime-ridden section of Watts.

But it wasn’t until the parish hosted a police luncheon in the church hall last year that officers learned firsthand just how severe the school’s money problems were.

In the back half of the tiny auditorium--about the size of a basketball court--teachers were conducting first-grade and kindergarten classes behind a flimsy partition.

“We asked [Sister Maria Luz Hernandez], ‘Do they have a classroom?’ And she said, ‘No, they don’t have a classroom,’ ” said Sgt. Jeff Hamilton. “I walked back there and saw they were sitting on the floor.”

Neither, he said, did the students have desks or chairs.

“I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to do something about this.’ ”

The first idea--turning surplus police trailers into makeshift classrooms on the school blacktop--proved unworkable, so Hamilton asked an affluent neighbor in his Orange County neighborhood to help out.

The result was an anonymous $100,000 donation, formally presented at a school assembly Monday morning, that will allow the school to construct two sorely needed classrooms.

“I was really shocked. It was like our prayers had been answered,” said kindergarten teacher Sister Juanita Banuelos. “God bless him, whoever that person is.”

Hamilton’s idea of appealing to a wealthy neighbor who had recently sold a company proved successful.

Initially, Hamilton had only asked for a contribution to help renovate the trailers.

“He said, ‘Forget about those trailers. We’d pour all this money into them, and in a couple of years they’d be obsolete,’ ” Hamilton said.

So the donor, himself a native of Compton, asked Hamilton how much it would cost to build classrooms from scratch. Hamilton threw out the wishful figure of $100,000.

“I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that it would occur,” Hamilton said. “When I picked up the check and kept reading the zeros, I almost fell over.”

Monday morning, the school’s 200-plus students lined up on the blacktop to watch as police presented an oversized check to Principal John Quarry and Hernandez.

“Money is always an issue here. The attraction for gangs and drugs in Watts is probably greater than anywhere else in the city,” said Capt. Charlie Beck of the Southeast Division.

“There’s nowhere the money could be used better. I wish it was three times that amount.”