Giving down at charities

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- The increasing number of needy people filing in for help

from city charities has not changed to reflect the decreasing amount of

money the nonprofit organizations have collected this year.

The contradiction between the two is bound to cause problems, local

charity officials said.

“We’re all going to suffer this year,” said Aviva Goelman, the

executive director of the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

Goelman said the senior center has experienced a severe decline in

donations and blames the shortfall on a mixture of the dwindling economy

and the national focus on the East Coast following the Sept. 11 terrorist

attacks. Officials from Save Our Youth and Someone Cares Soup Kitchen

report the same.

Save Our Youth Director Oscar Santoyo said revenues were down 15% to

20%, while George Neureuther of Someone Cares Soup Kitchen gave an even

grimmer picture about the center that serves 95,000 meals in a year.

Neureuther said soup kitchen donations have dropped 60% since Sept.

11. The biggest indication of a tumultuous holiday season came after the

kitchen’s annual fund-raiser in November. Last year, it raised $30,000.

This year, it only brought in $7,000, he said.

“People must remember that there is still a community in need here and

even more so since Sept. 11,” Neureuther said.

Santoyo echoed his sentiment, saying he’s been trying to spread the

word that local charities are in dire need of funding.

“We may have to scale down our programs or serve less children.” said

Santoyo, whose center offers after-school programs for roughly 400

children.

“We don’t want to do that. In fact, we won’t,” he asserted.

Santoyo said the after-school program will look to grants to make up

the difference.

Goelman said her concerns go beyond a lack of donations and border on

a lack of concern for the elderly.

“Seniors are not in the limelight. We are at the bottom,” Goelman

said.

The generation of seniors that the center serves is the most needy,

Goelman said, because they are the parents who made big sacrifices to

give their children the educations they never had. They just worked their

entire lives -- without saving -- and retired on social security and

Medicare, she said.

“Family was everything to these seniors and they spent their lives

making sure their kids got to college, without thinking about their own

future,” Goelman said.

“Now they are being forgotten,” she added.

While Goelman, Santoyo and Neureuther look to ways to fund existing

programs while pinching pennies, other organizations are getting more

donations than ever.

Share Our Selves, Orange County’s largest charity, has actually seen

an increase in charitable giving this year, especially since the East

Coast attacks.

“People really begin to evaluate what is important and it has resulted

in some very generous months,” said Karen McGlinn, executive director of

Share Our Selves.

McGlinn said she did not want to paint the charity as being impervious

to hardships but believed the organization’s longevity -- 30 years in

Costa Mesa -- gives it a cushion.

“We’ve been around a very longtime and people know that we respond to

the needs of the community. As a result, they respond to us more

generously,” she said.

Laura Johnson, the executive director of Shalimar Learning Center,

said her organization has also been blessed with a dedicated group of

volunteers. Shalimar Learning Center provides a service that cannot be

measured in dollar amounts, as the center revolves around volunteers who

donate their time to tutor at-risk children. While the center’s bottom

line isn’t suffering, Johnson echoed a need for more volunteers.

“We can still function, but it would be nice to put two kids to one

volunteer, rather than 30 so they can feel valued and don’t get lost in

the shuffle of this adult world,” Johnson said.

Regardless of what the books may report, all the charity

representatives expressed a need for continued support.

“Everybody helps in December but we’re still going to need help in

January,” Johnson said.

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .