Oasis Provides a Safe Hangout for Hollywood’s Urban Youth

It’s Friday night in Hollywood, and teenagers in droves flock to the Oasis, a haven for poor urban kids who have no place to hang out.

The attraction is the teen club at the Oasis, a faith-based nonprofit group that has been reaching out to needy youngsters in Hollywood for more than two decades.

Jackie Rodriguez, a high school senior, likens the Oasis to her second home.

“It keeps me off the street,” said Jackie, who has been coming to the Oasis since she was 8, beginning with the Kidz Klub, an after-school program that includes tutoring, moral education, field trips and picnics for children 5 to 12 years old. “It’s a really good atmosphere for me.”

On any Friday between 8 and 11 p.m., 85 to 200 junior and senior high students congregate at the Oasis on Ivar Street, a block away from Hollywood and Vine.

Under the loving but watchful eyes of Judy and Ron Radachy, a minister couple who run the Oasis, kids play basketball, billiards, air hockey, video games, roller-skate, listen to music and break dance.

Along with deafening music, the smell of popcorn, nachos and burritos fills the air inside a crowded recreation area that is divided into a snack bar, a disc jockey station and a dance floor, complete with flashing multicolored lights.

Not everyone who comes to the Oasis is from the neighborhood. Some travel hours by bus. But going home is easy.

“If they get here, we’ll take them home,” Judy Radachy said. The Radachys consider driving the youngsters home another opportunity to learn about them and influence them.

“We want to give them hope and vision,” Ron Radachy said. “Without purpose, they fall apart.”

Judy Radachy founded the Oasis with her first husband 23 years ago. He died in 1982. The group’s original mission was working with runaways. But it has expanded to include much more--a mobile stage on a retrofitted bus that visits neighborhoods in Hollywood, a computer learning center, children’s ministry, and a school and internship program to prepare future urban youth workers.

Each week, 400 youths, ages 5 to 18, participate in various Oasis programs. Even gang members come to the teen club.

“When the local gangs were in their full glory, they declared the Oasis a neutral territory,” Ron Radachy said. “They said it didn’t belong to anybody. It belonged to God.”

This Christmas, as in Christmases past, the organization will give gifts to all the youths who are part of the life at the Oasis.

“Any kid that is affiliated with us in some shape or form is going to get a gift,” Ron Radachy said.

But this year, the Oasis, like so many other nonprofit groups, has felt the pinch because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“We have so many visions, but limited resources,” Judy Radachy said. But she doesn’t worry too much. God has provided in the past, she says, and she trusts that he will in the future.

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