As Guiding Lights for Foster Youth, They’re Brightest

They are an eclectic bunch with varied life experiences, careers and ages that span seven decades. A few had tough childhoods, growing up with abuse and neglect.

Although different, the seven people share a desire to help Los Angeles County’s 30,000 foster children overcome the pitfalls that can lead to dropping out, destitution, crime or drug addiction.

They were recently honored, along with a community service club, as Foster Care Heroes by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services as part of the Los Angeles Foster Care Awareness Campaign.

“This is our way of acknowledging the public heroes who are turning lives around,” said Miriam Aroni Krinsky, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles.

Here are their stories:

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Aaron Ruben, 90, volunteer

It all started a few days before Christmas some 25 years ago.

Hoping to cheer up hospitalized kids, Ruben and his wife, Maureen, visited young tuberculosis patients and gave them stuffed animals. The experience touched him, and the TV producer and comedy writer was soon doing improvisational skits with mentally disturbed kids and foster youth.

Wanting to do even more, 16 years ago Ruben became a court-appointed special advocate, a big brother of sorts to foster children. He takes his three clients to lunch, buys them necessities and gives them advice. And every year, he awards $10,000 in scholarships to foster kids.

“Sometimes I go above what I’m required,” said Ruben of Beverly Hills, who produced the TV classics “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Sanford & Son.”

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Jessica Ambroz, 27, social worker

As a teen, she lived on the streets of Boston and in homeless shelters with her mother and two brothers before she wound up in the foster-care system. Ambroz’s upbringing clearly influences her work. She takes her clients to the library or nearby universities to highlight education opportunities and to the bank to teach them about personal finances.

Most of all, she searches for someone whom her clients can count on, especially after they turn 18 and leave the foster-care system. “My job is to find a permanent, unconditional person in their life, someone to call from jail or the hospital at 2 in the morning. I look for mentors, teachers, anyone willing to make that commitment,” she said.

She is fortunate enough to have two such people in her life: Kate Dalhstedt and Edward Tick, who live in Albany, N.Y. Ambroz became close with the couple after she met their older son at a YMCA summer camp.

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Rob Hirschhorn, 49, social worker

His goal is to set foster children on a course for success.

Hirschhorn specializes in Family Group Decision Making emancipation conferences, bringing together a handful of trusted adults who review a child’s short- and long-term plans pertaining to housing, education and employment after they leave foster care.

He devised a step-by-step plan for the conferences that he has passed on to his colleagues.

“It’s a complex challenge to plan a young person’s life, to provide them with all the resources, tools and support people to make this plan actualized,” said Hirschhorn, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

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Patricia Curry, 54, volunteer

Ten years of mentoring children as a court-appointed special advocate prompted her to tackle the systemic problems of the foster-care system.

For eight years, Curry has served on the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families, and she is a member of the Emancipation Program Partnership, which links government and community agencies to assist foster children leaving the system.

Curry, a Pasadena insurance broker, advocated for a website to help foster youth become independent adults, transitional housing for those turning 18 and drop-in assistance centers.

“I can’t even remember a time when I wasn’t volunteering,” she said. “When you’re raised that way, it becomes part of your life.”

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Elvira Rodriguez, 55, foster mother

For more than 30 years, the Hacienda Heights resident has been trying to be a good influence for troubled foster girls, some of whom are mothers themselves.

“I always felt that when they come to my house, I adopt them like my own daughters,” Rodriguez said. “I tell them, ‘I know I’m not your real mother, but I want you to have confidence in me, to come to me with problems. I will listen to you and try to understand.’ ”

Her husband, Ignacio Leon, is supportive of her foster care work even when it gets challenging.

“I have all the patience in the world,” said Rodriguez, who has four grown children. “By the end, they say they don’t want to leave.... As long as I’m healthy, and I can, I will continue to do this, because they’re my happiness.”

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Rashad McAllister, 20, former foster child

Determined to not let his beginnings in foster care dictate his future, he graduated from high school and joined the federal Job Corps program, learning computer and office skills. He then worked as a security guard, but that wasn’t enough for McAllister, who was honored for being a foster-care success story.

He enrolled in nursing school. Last year, he became a nurse’s aide and he aspires to be a registered nurse.

“He remained focused and worked hard until he reached his personal goals,” said Joe Eisenfeld, who was McAllister’s social worker. “He is very dedicated and can [become a registered nurse] if he wants to. It’s been an uphill battle for him. Nothing has come easy.”

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Woodland Hills Rotary Club

This community group has found many ways to help, including taking group-home children on a deep-sea fishing trip and buying a violin for a foster child.

The club sponsors holiday pizza parties for local group homes and distributes food baskets on Thanksgiving.

“One of the most fun things we do is to take boys and girls out fishing,” said past president Sheri Polak. “Some of them have grown up here but have never seen the ocean.”

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Juliza Perez, 22, former foster child

She spent four years in foster care and attended a dozen high schools. But instead of dwelling on her misfortune, she uses her experiences to help other foster children.

While at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Perez helped start a peer-mentoring program to help youth transition from the foster-care system into college life.

“I try to help anywhere I can because I didn’t have that kind of help,” Perez said.

Now studying mass communications and sociology at UC Berkeley, she speaks publicly to foster children and others.

“It’s the feedback that gets me going,” said Perez, who wants to be a public policy attorney. “When I hear kids say, ‘You inspired me,’ it gives me more energy to help people.”

Times staff writer Hector Becerra contributed to this report.