LAGUNA BEACH : Riot Funds to Aid Women in Business

Nine months after they made a plea for donations to help rebuild businesses in riot-scarred Los Angeles, two Laguna Beach residents have decided to give the money to an organization that helps women launch small businesses.

About $6,700 collected for the Laguna Beach for L.A. Fund will go to the Coalition for Women’s Economic Development, a Los Angeles group that helps low-income women become self-employed, said Ann Tashjian, who helped create the fund.

“It’s a wonderful program,” Tashjian said. “It’s exactly what we were looking for.”

Tashjian said she and Susan Mas, a member of the Laguna Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees, began soliciting money to help riot victims and others affected by the upheaval last May but were not sure exactly what to do with the money when it began to pour in, mostly in small checks.

“These were just folks who had a few bucks and sent it in,” Tashjian said. “Certainly from this distance we were not able to go around and find people to loan money to, so we are going to just give the money to CWED for their use.”

Donations were mailed to the school district, Tashjian said, and then handed over to the Orange County Community Foundation, a Costa Mesa-based organization that helps donors give money to charities.

Judy Swayne, executive director of the foundation, said she was impressed that the Laguna Beach women were able to prompt the outpouring of contributions.

“It was just a real spontaneous response to the tragedy,” Swayne said. “Within four days, we had about $6,700 coming from about 200 people, mostly in $10 checks. It was really quite an extraordinary thing to happen in such a short period of time.”

To thank those who donated and to let contributors know where their money is going, Forecee Hogan-Rowles, the director of Coalition for Women’s Economic Development, will speak Saturday at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 428 Park Ave., in Laguna Beach. The one-hour meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m.

The nonprofit coalition was created in 1987 in response to the rising poverty rates among women. The group allows loans up to $2,000 for first-time borrowers.