Center Turns Students On to Joys of Reading

They paint, they do their homework and they make clay pots. But most important, the children attending a Boyle Heights after-school program read.

“Encouraging the children to read is the most important part of our program,” said Angelica Solis, director of IMPACTO, an enrichment program serving more than 110 children, mainly youths who live in the Pico-Aliso housing project.

“If they can’t read, they can’t do their homework, they can’t understand math or science,” Solis said.

But running their “reading club” has been challenging, Solis said, because the center is not well-equipped. The reading room in the former Los Angeles Housing Authority office has a few beanbag chairs and one bookshelf of paperbacks.

The program, affiliated with Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission and open to all youths in the neighborhood, received $15,000 from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofit agencies in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

The funding will help develop a comprehensive library for the children and contribute to the salary of a counselor and tutor who will assist the children with homework, writing and tutoring. Program officials hope to be able to purchase popular books, such as the Harry Potter series.

“No, we don’t have one Harry Potter book,” Solis said. “It’s difficult because we are encouraging the children to read, but then do not have the books that they hear about and want.”

The program includes a middle school component, a center that one girl who attends from 3 to 7 p.m. daily called “my first home.” The center provides tutoring and a safe haven for children whose families have few child-care alternatives.

Rafael Esparza, 18, a former student at the center, has returned as a counselor and is attending East Los Angeles College. He makes sure each middle school student in the program reads for at least half an hour a day, a practice that he said improved his high school grades.

Jasmine Jacobo, 12, remembers when her inability to read well became a daily disappointment. “I would get so frustrated I just wouldn’t do it,” she said.

With the help of an IMPACTO tutor, Jasmine said, she has improved her reading skills and now completes her homework every day at the center.

Her friend, Elsie Garcia, 12, who has attended the after-school program since second grade, said she didn’t like to read until she found a book at the center that sparked her interest.

Elsie hopes that her new after-school library will be stocked with books “about real life, about things that kids are interested in.” She said, “It’s important for us to have books we can relate to. Life isn’t a fairy tale, you know.”

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