Trip Will Give Urban Children a Chance to See Colorado

Many children in the Pico-Union district have never been on a train or felt snow, but a dozen of them will be aboard Amtrak’s Desert Wind through the Rocky Mountains when the local Teen Post sponsors a train trek to Denver in three weeks.

“I’ve never been to Denver and I’ve never heard of Denver, but I really, really want to go to Denver,” said a 7-year-old girl named Heidi as she took a break from her math studies at the Teen Post on Venice Boulevard. “I want to go there and play.”

The driving force behind the trip is Pico-Union Teen Post Director Frances Roman.

Roman has been at the Pico-Union center for 15 years, teaching English, reading and math in her effort to keep the children on the right track. The Pico-Union Teen Post is one of five facilities in the city.

“The biggest goal of the Teen Post here is to keep the kids out of gangs,” Roman said. “I’ve heard how bad they are supposed to be, but I get along with them fine.

“They respect me. I even get them to help out sometimes when we have a street cleaning. I’ve seen many of them paint over their own graffiti,” she said.

One of Roman’s assistants who will accompany her on the trip is Jose Arellano, 22, who got started at the Teen Post after he vandalized the building six years ago.

“He threw a rock and busted our window,” said the feisty Roman, who grew up in Newark, N.J. She said she chased him down and told him she wanted him to start coming to the youth center.

“I told him he better stop doing that stuff and come to the Teen Post or I would get someone after him,” Roman said. “You got to be tough out here.”

The children will spend one day in Denver after the 30-hour trip.

For many it will be enough.

Osvaldo,a 10-year-old boy who has seen little beyond his gritty neighborhood, said: “I just want to see the outside.”