Boys and Girls Club Offers Kids a Productive Alternative

Over at the Desert Hot Springs Boys and Girls Club, just a few blocks from an alley where some kids gathered for a fight on a recent Monday afternoon, dozens of elementary school students greeted their 14-year-old tutor with smiles, hugs and shouts of “Hi, Jackie!”

Once rebellious and struggling with a drinking problem, Jackie Johnson says the club turned her life around. Now, each day after school, she helps young people from 6 to 18 who frequent the club in one of the Coachella Valley’s poorest cities.

“I’ve always had problems in my life, but the club helped me get through them. These children will always remember that we helped them, too,” she said as she prepared to assist a kindergartner with his homework.

The Boys and Girls Club has become a vibrant community center in the city of 16,000 people, many of whom are service industry workers in the surrounding resort communities of Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and La Quinta.

Membership dues are kept to a low $10 for the entire school year, with an additional optional fee of $10 for a summer pool pass. Scholarships are available to families unable to afford the membership fee.

This year, the program received $15,000 from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofit agencies in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The 24-year-old club has 1,200 members and, with the city’s population expected to double in the next decade, it will be stretched to its limits.

“We’re preparing to raise funds for a new 30,000-square-foot facility that will also serve as the community recreation center,” said Adam Sanchez, executive director.

Residents say the city sorely needs such a place. Known for its hot natural mineral water, Desert Hot Springs has been mired in budget deficits for more than seven years.

Flanked by stark desert mountains and modest stucco homes, the club stays open year-round Monday through Friday during the hours most needed by families -- after school and all day during the summer and school breaks -- offering a variety of programs to keep children off the streets and productively engaged after school.

Each afternoon for an hour, club members do homework under the “Project Learn” program

“Project Learn is a life-saver for me,” said commercial washing machine serviceman George Ballesteros, whose son, George Jr., 10, is a club member. “My son’s homework is completed before I get home from work, and staffers even show him how to solve the problems.”

HOW TO GIVE

The annual Holiday Campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $800,000 raised at 50 cents on the dollar. Donations (checks or money orders) supporting the Holiday Campaign should be sent to: L.A. Times Holiday Campaign, File 56986, Los Angeles, CA 90074-6986.

Do not send cash. Credit card donations can be made on the Web site: www.latimes.com/holidaycampaign.

All donations are tax-deductible. Contributions of $50 or more may be published in The Times unless a donor requests otherwise; acknowledgment cannot be guaranteed. For more information call (800) LA TIMES, Ext. 75771.