School Is Part Dream and Part Obsession

As the school day draws to a close, English teacher Steve Zimmer rushes out of Marshall High in Los Feliz to his night job in a muggy warehouse next to train tracks and the Los Angeles River.

The heat is stifling in the cavernous building, but Zimmer is unfazed.

Three dozen youngsters swarm him, tug at him and hang on him. Zimmer spends the next three hours correcting math homework, reading stories, reviewing spelling words, photocopying work sheets--and cajoling antsy 10-year-olds to stay focused.

“There’s an urgency here that’s changed my life,” Zimmer, 31, said. “There’s no time to be tired.”

For Zimmer and two other teachers, this warehouse near Dodger Stadium is part dream and part obsession. The three, with nothing more than gumption and a shoestring budget, have turned the onetime sweatshop into a community center where dozens of children come every day for after-school tutoring.

Other teachers might flinch at the thought of spending their afternoons and evenings in a warehouse that broils in summer and freezes in winter. They might scoff at the notion of 12-hour workdays and a second job that doesn’t pay a dime. Those teachers should meet Zimmer, Gloria Moya and Albert Vargas in their element, amid the books and computers and microscopes of the muggy warehouse near the river.

This is more than a tale of idealistic teachers. The services offered at the Elysian Valley United Community Services Center have important social implications. In a state where more than 1 million low-income children with working parents are not enrolled in supervised after-school programs, they show what individual creativity and commitment can accomplish.

A report earlier this month by several law enforcement authorities found that young people are most likely to engage in risky behavior and become victims of violent crimes in the hours immediately after school. The report also said that after-school activities not only cut crime but promote learning.

Zimmer and his two colleagues are filling the gap in their own small way--working with about 100 children a week.

A few of the youngsters come with their parents. Most walk or are dropped off with notebooks and backpacks. They sit at tables in the warehouse and attack their homework, asking questions incessantly as Zimmer and the other adults listen patiently. The warehouse buzzes with energy even as dinner time approaches.

Seven-year-old Miles Pinon and his 4-year-old sister, Marlene, are among those who come while their parents work. Both love the center, seemingly unaware of the heat or the bare floor or the fluorescent lights.

“You can draw and you can play,” Miles said. “You can read in the library.”

Zimmer, Moya and Vargas launched the center about 18 months ago with $30,000. They set out to transform the shell of a building into an inviting home for children and adults--scrubbing, refurbishing and painting.

“The place was basically a sewing factory,” said Moya, 32.

The three teachers wanted to address needs that had long been neglected. Elysian Valley is a collection of beat-up homes and warehouses crammed between the Los Angeles River and the Golden State Freeway--a place with two liquor stores and a strip club but no doctors or supermarkets. To outsiders, the area of 10,000 people is better known by its longtime gang name, Frogtown.

“The need has always been there, and we’re barely beginning to scratch the surface,” said Vargas, 41, who taught at nearby Allesandro Elementary and now works for the Los Angeles teachers union. “When we look at what we do at the community center, it’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. We’re in it for the long haul.”

The center has become a focal point of activity in the neighborhood. By day, it serves as a continuation high school for 17 students, with Moya teaching. The site also offers English classes for adults at night and serves as a local meeting hub.

All of the services are free. The three teachers are assisted by several volunteer students from Marshall High who earn credit toward the community service they must perform as a graduation requirement.

The center gets modest funding from the Los Angeles Unified School District, the city, the county and private sources. But it’s not enough. And so the three teachers regularly dip into their own pockets.

Zimmer turns his birthday parties each year into fund-raising bashes--asking guests to bring donations or books to stock the center’s library. “We squeeze champagne from rocks,” he said.

Parents say the teachers and high school students provide an invaluable resource in a community in which many adults speak only Spanish and have limited resources to pay for extra tutoring.

“They are firm when they need to be, but patient and caring,” said Maria Ortega, 36, who brings her 5-year-old daughter to the center each afternoon.

On a recent day, Zimmer bounced from student to student, keeping watch over everyone as the hours passed. He sat at one table to help a boy write a sentence about the things he liked at school. As they worked, Zimmer noticed another boy, Moses, wandering away from his books and toward the computers in the back of the room.

“Moses,” Zimmer called, “what happened with your homework, dude?”

“I’m done.”

“For real? Let me check it.”

Zimmer leafed through the boy’s notebook.

“It’s not done,” Zimmer said. “You can work on the computers, but we’re going to do more work later. I’m not going to forget.”