With a little help

Michele Marr

Jack and Carolyn Allen were looking for project -- one more project

for the twice-yearly Community Service Days sponsored by the north stake

of their Huntington Beach Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day

Saints.

Isabelle Teraoka needed help building 12 portable carts, carts to hold

back packs, books and jackets in the classrooms at Oak View Elementary

School.

“It was one of those happy meetings that are the life blood of our

services” said Teraoka, Coordinator of Volunteers for the Oak View

Collaborative.

In Huntington Beach, a city with a population of about 200,000 and an

average household income of nearly $100,000, Oak View is a neighborhood

vexed with overcrowded housing, gang and domestic violence, substance

abuse, child abuse and extreme, persistent poverty -- problems more often

found in large urban areas.

Teraoka is devoted to changing that.

“We are kidding ourselves if we think these issues don’t affect us as

long as we live on the good side of town,” she said.

About 98% of the residents of Oak View are Hispanic, with incomes that

fall below the federal poverty level. As many as 50% of the students’

parents are illiterate in their native language, Spanish, and 90% are

illiterate in English.

“I am an immigrant myself. Can you guess why I identify with the kids

in Oak View who must adapt to life here,” Teraoka asked.

She was in third grade the first time her family moved from her

Belgian birthplace to the U.S. in 1986. She was in the eighth grade when

they moved here a second time in 1990 and stayed.

“Oak View reminds me of the village I grew up in. There is a sense of

community, people out in the streets talking, kids playing outside,” she

said.

The Oak View Collaborative is part of FaCT, Families and Communities

Together, a countywide partnership of similar community-based

collaborations and the County of Orange Social Services.

Under the direction of its lead agency, the Children’s Bureau, the

program works to provide the children of Oak View and their parents with

the prospect of a better future.

In an effort to improve the grim statistics that characterize the

neighborhood, the collaborative provides families with support services

and education programs, among them a literacy program, English as a

second language classes, adult and child tutoring, homework clubs, before

and after school programs, a Headstart center and community education

classes.

In addition to funding from FaCT, all the programs depend on the work

of volunteers and the donations of supporters. So Teraoka is grateful

when people like the Allens find her.

A lot of people tell her they drive down Warner Avenue, west from

Beach Boulevard, for years and never realize a neighborhood like Oak View

is right there.

“There are people who have incomes in the hundred thousands living

just a couple blocks from families crammed three to an apartment scraping

by on no more than $10,000 a year. It boggles my mind,” she said.

The Allens and their north stake church have continued to work with

Teraoka.

“We love working with Isabelle. She is easy to love. She is so sweet

and so unassuming. The people in the community are very appreciative of

anything we do,” said Carolyn Allen.

Recently church members planted flowers in front of the school and

library. In April they arranged for hundreds of pounds of food, soap and

toothpaste -- donated by the Humanitarian Aid Fund of the Church of Jesus

Christ of the Latter-day Saints -- to be delivered to the Oak View

Collaborative.

“I notice the difference. Little by little, it helps,” she said.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for as

long as she can remember. She can be reached at o7

michele@soulfoodfiles.com.f7