Neighborhood Soccer League Kicks In at Park

Jose Avitia, whose 7-year-old daughter Darlene was among the young soccer players at Delano Park on Saturday morning, remembered when the grounds were full of trash and controlled by gangs years ago.

The Avitias were among the hundreds of people gathered for a ceremony marking the start of a new soccer league at the park. The league is sponsored with city and private funds.

The park has been cleaned up for about two years now, and Jose Avitia said soccer will help keep kids out of trouble.

“It will keep them entertained,” said Avitia, 25, of Van Nuys. “They are interacting with a good, athletic crowd--not with guys on a corner sipping beer, looking for trouble.”

The Erwin Street park was overrun with eager young soccer players Saturday. The youngsters, sporting colorful uniforms, were excited to start their season.

Conceived as an affordable, fun activity for area youth, the league will be funded for three years with $20,000 from the mayor’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative and $6,000 from area businesses, said Stacey Greenwood, a mayor’s office spokeswoman. The league is expected to sustain itself with private funds, she said.

The city’s TNI program provides 12 neighborhoods with $3 million over three years to use for improvements.

About 600 youths, ages 10 through 17, signed up to play in the Delano Park league. The players must live in the area. Children ages 5 to 9 pay $15; those 10 to 17 pay $20. The registration fee includes uniforms and trophies.

“You can’t play soccer for that price anywhere,” said Sandy Kievman, co-chairwoman of a Van Nuys TNI recreation and youth partnership group.

The children are organized into 28 teams that play 16 games during a three-month season. All games are played at Delano Park and Van Nuys Park.

Kievman said the recreation and youth partnership members met once a week for more than a year with area youths to plan the soccer league.

The new sports program is part of an ongoing transition at Delano Park.

A truce reached with a local gang resulted in the gang’s being allowed to have its own team in an adult soccer league at the park, said Bob Landrum, park director.

“When I used to drive by here, I used to get scared,” Landrum said. “Now it’s a family park--a little haven.”