Housing Project Club an Oasis of Fun, Learning : Harbor City: Tutoring and after-school program thrives on increasing help from private groups. For some children, it’s an alternative to gangs.

Stretching as far as he can on his toes, 11-year-old William Kovatch taps the cue ball gently and sinks a solid-colored ball. His opponent is 9-year-old Khalif Ferguson--like Kovatch, a regular at the Boys and Girls Club of Harbor City/Harbor Gateway’s after-school program.

Intense as their game is, William stops when he sees a younger boy at the next table having trouble lining up his shot. After a few pointers from William, both games resume.

Housed in what used to be a preschool in Harbor City’s 397-unit Normont Terrace public housing development, the Boys and Girls Club has grown from 35 youngsters in 1989--its first year of operation--to 180 today.

Experts say the club, started with seed money from the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization, illustrates how low-income housing developments are receiving increasing help from private groups ranging from residents to businesses.

Nothing remains static at the club, which serves as an alternative high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

At 8 a.m., the pool tables are pushed to one end of the room to make way for desks, where teen-agers who have struggled in the formal high school system receive tutoring to help them earn their high school diplomas.

Later, the pool tables are pushed back again as 25 to 50 children--mostly elementary school students--attend an after-school program from 2 to 6 p.m. They play pool, table tennis and other games, receive computer instruction and help with their homework, and, like William, learn to get along with others.

“I think it’s important to learn how to lead and to follow,” said the club’s executive director, Mike Herrera. Calling himself the “great copycatter,” Herrera duplicates successful activities at other organizations and taps community resources to improve the club.

Whether it’s asking welders at Harbor Occupational College to make bicycle racks for the club or applying for grants from foundations, Herrera tries to improve the environment for local youngsters.

He persuaded Los Angeles’ housing authority to move huge piles of fertilizer stored behind the former preschool building to make room for basketball courts. He has also cleaned up part of a storage area inside the building and turned it into a computer room now equipped with machines donated by TRW.

Covering 37.6 acres, Normont Terrace houses 1,457 people. About 85% of the residents are Latino, 10% are African-American, 2% Caucasian and 2% Asian.

One of the problems at Normont is gangs. The Boys and Girls Club doesn’t allow gang colors inside, but Herrera doesn’t exclude anyone willing to follow the rules.

“I tell them, ‘Put your hat down, it’s no problem, come on in,’ ” Herrera said. “Our ‘Youth of the Year’ lives right at the corner where they sell the drugs, but he’s a straight-A student.

“A lot of kids around here become gang members or police officers--that’s all they know. If we show them alternatives, we at least give them the opportunity to find something else,” Herrera said.

Youngsters agree. William Perea, a student in the high school program, turned in a writing assignment in June in which he said he had belonged to a gang--until the Harbor City center offered him a way out.

“For a time, I took a lot of chances with gangs,” wrote Perea, 18. “I think I’m lucky I’m still alive. So I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to be screwed up.’ The Harbor City learning center is, I think, my chance to get my life straightened out and make something out of myself.”

Parents also are welcome the club.

Normont Terrace resident Stella Jurado, the mother of two children who frequent the club, sees the facility as an oasis for youngsters. “What’s going on in here is good. What’s going on out there is sometimes bad.

“I think the difference (with this club) is the personal commitment to the youth of this community,” she said.

That commitment comes mainly from Herrera but also from the club’s board of directors, made up of 27 community and business leaders. Torrance Police Chief Joe De Ladurantey, current president of the board, is one of the club’s most enthusiastic supporters.

“If I didn’t have other things to do, I would be down there all the time,” De Ladurantey said. The club, he added, plans to expand into other parts of the South Bay. “I’m convinced you can take anything we’ve done here and duplicate it anyplace.”

De Ladurantey and other board members seek out the funding and donations needed to run the club. Some of them also plan to serve as role models next year when the high school starts a career planning program. Other role models are high school students that Herrera brings to the club.

“The younger kids see the older kids playing out there--having fun and letting loose. They see they don’t have to be a tough guy when they grow up,” Herrera said.

The high school program, which began last March, provides young people who haven’t attended school in the last 45 days with an opportunity to do catch-up work so they can return to school or earn a high school degree at the club. This spring, the school signed up 25 students.

“It’s not seat time--we treat them as adults,” said Camilla Kocol, principal of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s San Pedro Adult School, which sponsors the program. Kocol says the program can be harder to finish than traditional high school because it places a greater emphasis on academic performance.

The approach appears to work. Among those making steady progress are students who got in trouble at their former schools for fighting or gang activity, or who took time off to have babies.

Three are now close to graduating. Kocol said several of the students, who used to attend school an average of three days a month, have had perfect attendance records. Kocol said all students in the club’s high school program found themselves jobs this summer.

The Boys and Girls Club is looking for a new home because Normont Terrace, built in 1942 to provide wartime housing for workers in nearby shipyards, is scheduled to be razed and rebuilt over the next several years.

But the problem doesn’t prevent Herrera from imagining other new activities for his club. Standing on a tract of undeveloped land behind Los Angeles Harbor College, Herrera can’t help thinking ahead. Someday, he said, he’d like to bring horses onto the property for the kids to ride.

Turning to walk away, he remarks, “Heck yeah, I can do that.”