SUN VALLEY : Walk Raises Funds for Outreach Program

Between 150 and 200 people, many of them reformed gang members or former drug addicts, walked five miles Saturday to raise money for a local church outreach program and to celebrate the church’s new location.

“The congregation is made up of people who used to be in gangs, alcoholics or drug addicts or outcasts from society,” said Dolores Pacheco, coordinator and counselor for Victory Outreach of the San Fernando Valley. “We work specifically in gang intervention, cruising the neighborhoods, and offer them a positive way of living.”

Pacheco is also the church group’s gang intervention specialist. The group, part of the national Victory Outreach organization, tries to turn young people around using religion.

The walk raised about $8,000 in pledges. The walk was from the church’s old site at 7921 De Garmo St., Sun Valley, to its new headquarters, a former warehouse at 13422 Saticoy St. in North Hollywood.

The group moved into the new building two weeks ago, Pacheco said. It had been using different rental sites for the last five years, she said.

“The space at the other church was way too small,” Pacheco said. Now, she said, they have room to stage plays about life on the streets.

“It’s very effective in reaching the drug addicts and gangs members,” Pacheco said of the plays. The money from the walkathon will go for operating costs and for the mortgage payment at the new building, she said.

The group’s next fund-raiser will be a pancake breakfast on Nov. 20, she said.