Finding a Home, Then a Job, Where Teens Get Solid Guidance

By Martha Groves

Nov. 14, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Alfredo Roman knows where he’d be Fridays if he weren’t at the Mar Vista Family Center.

“To tell you the truth, I’d be in the streets,” he said. “Not a good life.”

Roman, 18, leaves Venice High School each Friday afternoon and heads to his job as a youth leader of the center’s By Youth for Youth program. He began attending the program at age 13 and credits it with saving him from a life plagued by “wrong decisions.”

As assistant to program coordinator Blanca Diaz, Roman advises other young people on how to steer clear of gangs, drugs and the streets -- and how to deal with the sort of peer pressure that prompted him to begin drinking at age 11.

“It’s like having another family,” Roman said.

The program recently received a $20,000 grant from the 2005 Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which raises money for nonprofit groups serving disadvantaged children and youths in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. The grant was earmarked specifically for programs aimed at preventing violence.

By Youth for Youth is designed to help prevent “self-destructive behavior” in the 13-to-21 age group, said Mike Hernandez, development administrator. Hernandez notes proudly that he attended the Mar Vista Family Center’s preschool program and graduated from By Youth for Youth.

About 65 youths who are enrolled in the program meet every Friday afternoon. By Youth for Youth also offers after-school tutoring, groups for preteen girls and boys and a summer day camp for children 6 to 12.

In addition, By Youth for Youth holds a national conference each year for youth organizations from around the country to share ideas. The seventh annual conference is tentatively set for next June in Washington, D.C.

By Youth for Youth participants gather at the Mar Vista Family Center, a two-building complex at the end of a dead-end stretch of Slauson Avenue that slices through a rough-edged Mar Vista neighborhood inhabited primarily by low-income immigrants.

Not many years ago, the notorious Culver City Boys gang terrorized the area, tagging buildings and openly selling drugs. The situation has improved markedly, and many residents attribute the progress to the 28-year-old center and its efforts to nurture kids who otherwise might stray.

“We work with youth in personal growth, community leadership and education,” said Diaz, 27, a By Youth for Youth graduate who earned a master’s in social work from USC and returned to run the program. “We create space for them to communicate and feel safe about it.”

Each month, the participants address a different theme. One recent Friday afternoon, the young people, many of them giggling at their own self-consciousness, developed and performed skits about how peer pressure can lead to drug use, pregnancy and “ditching” school to go to a friend’s “kickback,” or party.

Even as they chuckled over friends’ bungled lines or awkward moments, there was a sense that many of the youths considered the center, with its linoleum floor and walls lined with children’s artwork, a comfort zone.

For Roman, it sure beats the streets, where one friend was killed and two others were wounded in drive-by shootings.

Just as counselors and teachers coaxed him through some of the treacherous teen years, Roman wants to help others. He has taken particular interest in Jesus, a boy who he feels “is going through some of the things I went through.”

“I treat him,” Roman said, “like a little brother.”

Money raised last year has provided $1.4 million to help children in need in 2005.

The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $500,000 in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.com/holidaycampaign.

To send checks, use the attached coupon. Please do not send cash.

Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.

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