All of These Kids Have Hard Drive to Succeed

The topic isn’t sports. We’ll stay away from the grown men who make millions and sometimes act so juvenile. There will be more time for that.

Instead we’ll discuss kids and potential, and men who make a difference, and a little building near Crenshaw Boulevard where it all happens.

It’s not a gym. It’s the Drug & Crime Free Youth Foundation, where computers are the answer.

Tim Robbins opened the center in the Santa Barbara Plaza in 1987, and Dave Holland has used his experience running computers for large firms to keep the technology up-to-date. Currently the Drug & Crime Free Youth Foundation has 32 networked computers, all hooked up to a DSL for high-speed Internet access.

At first they promoted the chance to learn how to use Word Perfect, Excel and Powerpoint. The computers sat unused. So they went out, bought some video games and loaded them into the computers. Word filtered out. Kids showed up and began to play.

But this isn’t just an arcade. During the week, the kids have to pause for typing tests every hour. A former professor tutors them in math on Wednesdays. They learn how to use the Internet.

“Me and Tim have decided to use these games as a lure,” Holland said. “Then we can make them do some educational stuff as well.”

The atmosphere encourages accomplishment in school. Good report cards get posted on the walls, and sometimes they even earn a few extra dollars from Robbins and Holland.

Even the ones who try to profile, rolling around with the baggy jeans, get their acts together in the classroom.

“Some of the slick-looking guys that be saggin’, they’ll come in with the report cards: Bs and A’s,” said Robbins, who is not related to the actor-director of the same name.

The kids feel as if they have a stake in the center. They help keep it clean. And they follow the rules because the punishment for misbehavior is a one-week ban from the center. “If they last, they convert,” Holland said. “They turn into kids.”

“They want to be kids,” Robbins said.

It isn’t easy, when gang members sometimes block the way home or insults can lead to an after-school beat-down, and where home usually is run by a single parent who has to work late.

But the combination of a place to go and an incentive to stay there can have positive effects.

“It works,” Robbins said. “It brings about a degree of change.”

“I used to get in trouble on the streets a lot ... have a lot of fights,” said 14-year-old Ray Carraway.

He fought as often as four times a week. Then his mother broke it down for him.

“She said I either had to change, or the next time I got in trouble she was going to let them take me to jail.”

It was her idea to come to the learning center. He has been coming for two years now. And now he almost never loses when they play “Star Craft,” a futuristic battle game.

When the kids are at school the center is available to senior citizens or young adults who need to make resumes or do research. The center is open Saturdays as well.

Last Saturday, a half-dozen kids were playing “Star Craft.” They were well-behaved, focused on the screens. They listened to the music and sound effects from their computers through headphones, so it wasn’t too noisy.

Amanda Goodman was using a computer to complete a homework assignment that required her to use the Internet.

Most of the computers are made from components Robbins and Holland put together themselves.

You don’t see a lot of high-end hardware around.

Robbins said the immediate needs are monitors and headphones.

Their long-term plans center on expansion. They want more space to install more computers so they can accommodate more kids. They want an outdoor area for a basketball court (exercise for the kids now is basically limited to tossing a football or holding footraces in the parking lot).

“We can expand,” Robbins said. “Right now, we don’t have the money to do it.”

Robbins uses funds from real-estate holdings and the proceeds from a thrift store to operate the center, which has annual expenses of more than $60,000.

Not only does the Drug & Crime Free Youth Foundation keep kids off the streets, it’s helping them to become computer-literate.

It’s the type of place that could benefit from the Tribune’s Holiday Campaign, which is soliciting reader contributions to distribute to social service groups next year. The target is $500,000, which will be matched at 50 cents on the dollar by the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

What’s a computer center worth? You can listen to me, but you’re better off listening to a couple of 12-year-olds.

“It’s fun for kids,” Donald Boyd said. “They can just have a good time.”

“I come here every day,” Daveon Johnson said. “I like it here.”

It’s always worth a little extra to hear a child say something so simple.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at ja.adande@latimes.com