Youth Advocates Thinking Positive : Recreation: Interfaith group aggressively lobbies Anaheim to extend, expand activities.

With school out for the day, 12-year-old David Coulter was shuffling a deck of cards and ready for action. He sized up a group of kids sitting at a picnic bench and blurted out loudly, “Anyone want to play?”

Fortunately for David, there was no shortage of playmates or activities on this sunny Friday afternoon at Pearson Park, where the boy and his three brothers have been coming each day to play soccer, T-ball and other sports.

They are among the hundreds of children in recent months who have joined in city recreation programs that previously were available only during summer months. Last fall, the City Council spent more than $250,000 for the additional programs at the park and around the city to provide youngsters with after-school alternatives to gangs and the streets.

The programs were set up after an aggressive lobbying campaign by a local grass-roots interfaith group. On Tuesday, members of the Orange County Congregation Community Organization once again will converge at a council meeting to urge city leaders to extend the one-year program and fund an expanded slate of activities at an estimated cost of $750,000.

The group is asking the city to pay for computer labs and teen centers at Anaheim High School and Sycamore Junior High and some staffed homework centers in low-income neighborhoods. They would also like to see the formation of evening sports leagues.

“Our concern is that the youth of the city be put first,” said Rick Conner, a longtime Anaheim resident who is among the leaders of the interfaith group.

“If we don’t take care of the needs of these kids, practically anything else we do is incidental,” Conner said. “With escalating violence, gang problems and drug problems, it’s necessary that we approach the solution from a preventive side. We want to put effort into things that keep kids off the street and give them positive alternatives.”

The group could face an uphill battle as city officials begin drafting their spending plan for the new budget year beginning July 1, and continue to grapple with the fallout from Orange County’s bankruptcy and the city’s own budget shortfall, expected to be $9 million for the next fiscal year.

OCCCO leaders point to Anaheim’s commitment to major development projects such as the planned $172.5-million revitalization of the area around Disneyland and a possible new baseball stadium as proof that funding is available.

“I look around and see that the city is finding the money for these big capital improvement projects and we’re talking about big dollars--nothing as trivial as $750,000,” Conner said. “When you’re worried about a drive-by shooting in front of your house because gangs aren’t getting along, you’re not too concerned about what’s happening at Disneyland.”

Mayor Tom Daly, who has been largely supportive of OCCCO’s goals, defended the city’s determination to move forward with their major development projects. But Daly added that the city must find a way to provide money for youth programs too.

“Our challenge is to achieve the correct balance between investing in economic development projects and projects that are focused on helping kids achieve their greatest potential,” Daly said. “We need to keep in mind that we need to keep investing in the future of the neighborhoods, and part of that is investing in programs for youth.”

The group met with the mayor last year to complain that gang violence has increased in recent years, while the city has made deep cuts in its Parks and Recreation Department programs.

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The onetime funding approved last year to launch the programs came from federal funds, the city’s Community Block Grant Program and other grants. No guarantee for future funding was made by the council and city officials say they are uncertain where the money might come from.

Among the activities the additional funding already has paid for are:

* Expansion of a Kids in Action anti-gang program at Pearson Park, the George Washington Community Center and six other school and park sites. More than 275 children between 5 and 12 have participated so far, according to Mark Deven, the city’s superintendent of recreation and community services.

“The program repackages recreation programs to enhance kids’ self-esteem and to show them alternatives to drug and gang involvement,” Deven said. “We also get the kids involved in activities like planting trees and painting out graffiti.”

* Additional hours of operation at the Anaheim Boxing Club, which is now open two extra hours each day and on Saturdays. This has doubled participation from about 30 youngsters a day to 60.

Other efforts include: the Police Athletic League, which involves 15 children learning karate from police volunteers; a free meal program at George Washington Community Center, which serves lunch to about 85 children each day; and a program where surplus bikes recovered by the Police Department are given to low-income youths who need a way to get to school or work.

In December, outreach worker Carolina Leon also was hired to work with girls from 12 to 18 who are at risk of using drugs, becoming pregnant, running away from home and dropping out of school. Most of the girls also associate with gang members.

“Our goal is prevention, intervention and keeping them in school until graduation,” Leon said. “We want to show them that they don’t have to become just another statistic in the community, pregnant and on welfare. They can make something of themselves.”

So far, Leon has counseled more than 70 girls at Sycamore Junior High and Anaheim High schools who were referred to her by their parents or school counselors and teachers.

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Earlier this month, the City Council was presented with a progress report on the programs.

“The programs are definitely working,” Deven said. “We would love to see them continued. We believe that the investment of prevention programs will benefit the city and its residents later on by giving them the tools to keep them out of trouble.”

OCCCO members came up with what they call the “Youth Vision Platform” last year after surveying hundreds of church families in Anaheim and holding 54 meetings with experts in education, law enforcement and crime prevention to try to get to the root of the city’s youth problems.

Their research showed that there wasn’t enough in the city for young people to do with their free time.

Mandy Escobedo, a recreation leader at Pearson Park, said she sees every day how much the programs mean to the youths she works with.

“If we weren’t here, a lot of the kids would just stay home,” Escobedo said. “We try to bring their self-esteem up. They need attention and we’re here. Some come here depressed and they leave with a smile on their face.

“That’s what you like to see.”