Learning Center Served Youths

In regard to the recent closing of the Shalimar Learning Center (“Protests Close Tutoring Center” (Sept. 20), I would like to offer my perspective having served there as a tutor for the past six years, since its inception.

Maria Alvarez is a Shalimar Street resident who was fed up with gang violence in the neighborhood. She worked with local police and the churches of St. Andrew and St. Joachim to create an after-school learning center. Kristina Wright ran the center successfully, with volunteers taking responsibility for their tutoring and seeking substitutes for their absences. As the bureaucracy developed, the hands-on involvement of the learning center waned. However, she knows each child and his/her situation, and gives extra support to a child who is going through difficult circumstances.

The tutoring has had a wonderful effect of giving the students self-discipline and learning skills. Additionally, their self-confidence has developed by their friendship with, and learning English from, English-speaking tutors. For these children, a home away from home has been a great boon to resolving the gang problem.

I hope all parties involved will remember that their primary concern is the children and that they will work in a community spirit to resolve the differences and quell the antagonism.

POLLY STANBRIDGE

Corona del Mar