IN THE MIX:Shalimar mentors change lives

Sometimes when I see a documentary or movie depicting a rough neighborhood I have visions of what can be done to fix the problems.

I have simple ideas that are actually grand because they are unrealistic. Even uncomplicated plans cost money and there are not a lot of people eager to put money into a rundown area. I end up thinking, “Somebody should do something.”

When Randy Barth heard about the problems going on in the Shalimar area of Costa Mesa he didn’t think someone should do something. He thought, “We should do something.”

In this case, the “we” ended up being St. Andrews Presbyterian, St. Joachim Church and the parents in the community.

By the 1990s the area around Shalimar Drive and Placentia Avenue, settled in the midst of industrial Costa Mesa, had a reality to match its reputation. Drug sales were rampant, it had the worst teen pregnancy rate in Orange County and every once in a while there was a shooting to top things off.

There was a police presence there, but they can’t be there 24-hours, and they won’t stop teen pregnancy or drop-out rates — that’s where parents come in. Of course sometimes the parents are the problem, and even when they’re not necessarily the problem, they have an uphill battle if they live in an impoverished area, complete with gangs and devoid of anything positive for the youths to do.

After a gang-related shooting in 1994 the mothers in the community started talking about what they could do to make the area safe and make a real future for their kids. At the same time, Barth the head of the mission committee at St. Andrews church, heard about what was going on in Shalimar and thought this would be something the church could get involved in.

“We were looking for something to do besides write checks,” he said.

He called his friend who was with St. Joachim’s. They met with parents in the community to find out what they needed and how to achieve it.

The parents in Shalimar said one of the things they needed was a safe place for the children to study in the neighborhood.

Barth said they talked to the city and all kinds of people to try to get things going. In the end the churches paid to rent an apartment for an after-school tutoring program. They initially thought they could do it all with volunteers, but then realized the program needed more structure and consistency so they hired a staff.

Soon they had to rent another apartment to provide separate areas for the younger kids and the older kids.

The churches have largely pulled out of the venture, now operating as a nonprofit called THINK Together, because they want to focus on faith-based programs and the Shalimar Learning Center is academic.

But former stockbroker and chief executive Randy Barth has stuck with it and in 2003 started working for THINK Together full-time. The nonprofit organization now has 190 after-school programs and is the largest after-school program in Southern California.

Still, Shalimar is a unique situation. The center is at apartments in the neighborhood as opposed to a school and opening of the centers led to an open dialogue between community members and the city. The events empowered residents to speak up and do more for their area.

The city stepped up too. They blocked off streets to prevent easy escape routes after any criminal activity, and code enforcement got some landlords to clean up their property. They also created a community park in the area.

The area still needs plenty of attention but the extra care by the city and residents shows. A few years after the learning center opened, it became clear the changes in Shalimar were tantamount to someone taking youths like Paolo Leon, Nadia Flores and Javier Diaz by the shoulders and turning them directly toward a life of opportunities.

Leon was about 13 when he started at the learning center.

“The director was very involved,” Leon said. “Even when he relocated there was consistently someone there who wanted to influence you and help you go in the right direction.”

He took advantage of his connections at the tutoring center and began attending Sage Hill High School in Newport Beach. He attended on a scholarship and became student body president.

After an education at Sage, Leon was accepted into USC and soon another connection at the center offered him an internship at his architecture firm.

Apparently the firm appreciated what Leone had to offer because the 21 year old is completing his third summer internship and they have told him a job is waiting for him when he graduates.

These connections with mentors are what Flores said makes the biggest difference.

She said when she was 13 she didn’t have mentors in her life, not teachers, not parents. But when a friend’s mom began helping out at the center she went along and found people who encouraged her and gave her information about education and most importantly, cared about what choices she made.

“For little kids it makes you feel like someone cares for you, there’s someone to look out for you,” she said.

When it came time to apply to colleges they were there to tell her which classes she needed to take and how she would pay for it.

She went straight from Newport Harbor High to UC Santa Barbara. From there she got a job at Univision and now the 26 year old works as a TV ad representative.

Life was even starker for Javier Diaz when he joined the center at 13.

“I was tired of doing nothing,” he said.

He said he was going to school but not focusing, and he was watching a lot of his friends drop out.

Much of Diaz’s family was wrapped up in gangs. That led to him transferring out of Estancia to avoid members of his uncles’ rival gang. He attended Newport Harbor High School where he said it was an eye-opening experience.

He said the students were primarily white and wealthy and they had parents who were pushing them to do well in school.

He said at Estancia it felt like people thought as long as you graduate it was fine.

After high school he said he still didn’t know what he wanted and which direction to turn so he joined the military. After the Marines, Diaz attended Orange Coast College and then Cal State Fullerton.

He said he wanted to be a probation officer to help youths. But when he was hired at a THINK Together program in Orange he found he wanted to help the kids before they were facing the probation officer. Now he’s on the path to becoming a high school history teacher.

He said he’d like to be the teacher who is willing to help students, to create a bond.

“I didn’t like school,” he said “I thought it was boring, I still think it’s boring. I want to show them it doesn’t have to be like that.”

Now Diaz is headed toward a life of getting to the kids before life brings them down — not a bad lesson to take away from the Shalimar Learning Center.

ALICIA LOPEZ teaches journalism at Orange Coast College and lives in Costa Mesa. She can be reached at [email protected].