Festival Gives a Shot in the Arm to Ailing Health Center

Until Sunday, Fernando Pages worried that the Val Verde Music Festival would flop attempting to raise money to keep open the community’s only health center.

“I think a lot of people had the nightmare last night that five people showed up today, and they were volunteers who had worked on the project,” said Pages, a builder who was among 50 volunteers who worked six months to arrange the festival.

But as the sun broke through overcast skies around noon on Easter, Pages felt satisfied with the outdoor event in a small canyon that forms tree-lined Val Verde Park.

“We’re finally getting a lot of people,” he said. “We have it set up very well. There’s enough bathrooms. We’ve got parking, a first aid, a lost and found, T-shirts for sale and you can buy Thai food, Mexican food or pizza.”

Pages said the festival had sold 800 tickets at $5 apiece by 1 p.m., enough to raise $4,000 for the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center. The clinic in the community of 2,000 northwest of Magic Mountain needs more than $60,000 to stay open after June.

Hundreds of people wearing jeans, running shoes, funky hats and light jackets gathered in the park in the community.

The revelers included children who tore across the grass carrying balloons on long strings and parents toting quiet babies in their back packs.

After a 6 a.m. sunrise service and a pancake breakfast, musical groups started performing at noon on an outdoor stage assembled for the occasion.

The numbers included a driving tenor saxophone solo by Jim Scimonetti of the 18-member Antelope Valley Community College band and native African dances by the CalArts African Ensemble in which drummers played polyrhythmic call-and-response patterns with dancers in traditional dresses and robes. Six groups who had volunteered their efforts played long into the afternoon.

The 10-year-old health center is staffed by a physician’s assistant, who dispenses basic care to many low-income blacks, Latinos and Anglos. The patients often lack transportation to neighboring hospitals, the closest of which is 12 miles away in Valencia.

The center ran into financial problems when Santa Monica Hospital announced late last year that it would stop supplying doctors who visit the clinic three days a week and would withdraw a $68,000 annual grant for staff salaries. An official said the hospital decided to use the resources to treat growing numbers of poor patients closer to home.

The health center received other financial good news Sunday when Jo Anne Darcy, a senior area field representative of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said Antonovich would try to help the clinic obtain a $110,000 community development block grant this summer.

“I’m sure we’ll get something,” Darcy said, “but I don’t know how much.”

Edwin Seth Brown, president of the Val Verde Civic Assn., said he thought a grant had been approved for the entire amount. “But I could be wrong. It’s her money.”

But for the afternoon, Pages put financial uncertainty aside and was happy.

“It’s a community show of support for the clinic,” he said. And as regards what it takes to get out such a crowd, Pages said, “It’s a small festival but the amount of detail and effort . . . is tremendous.

“Getting this many businesses to participate, finding out how many chemical toilets you need, how much water you need, talking to local restaurants to open concessions, getting stage equipment, making up tickets, getting the security--for people not used to dealing with this, there has to be a lot of hours.

“We were here until 2 a.m. setting up the area for the breakfast and then people started arriving at 4:30 a.m. to set up again for the sunrise service.

“When you pull off an event with volunteer help like this you need a lot of cooperation. You cannot bark out orders and expect people to follow them. You have to be diplomatic until the momentum of the event draws people in and makes them give their all.”