Harold Goldstein
Like most volunteers who give a little to their community and the world, a nonprofit organization is one step behind them, pushing them to make better use of their services. Newly organized Empower L.A. was present at the Day of the Child, an event designed to give foster children a good time, in the Pierce College Shepard Stadium Sunday, and the event staff was in need of their services. “There are about 1,600 mentors at this event,” said Arlan Berglas, co-chairman of Empower L.A. “Only 1,050 kids were able to have a mentor so the other 550 mentors did not get a chance to take care of a child. Today, we’ll give those other mentors a good opportunity.”Empower L.A. is a volunteer program in collaboration with the Volunteer Center of Los Angeles. It is only one of a large list of nonprofit organizations for volunteers.Resolved on June 26 by The Los Angeles Unified School Board, Empower L.A. will be able to help 2,000 schools with various volunteer programs and activities. “We are a program in the LAUSD that is made up of volunteers,” said Berglas. “We help schools by asking principals, vice principals, faculty and PTA groups to make a wish list on where they need help.”We also help individuals work in a program doing exactly what they want to be doing and when they want to be doing it.”Being a new program, Empower L.A. has created goals that they plan to fulfill over the course of their volunteering involvement. The first goal is to engage individuals in one-on-one activities and help each and every person come to the realization that they are capable of making a positive difference in the lives of other people.Through collaboration, the second goal is to encourage people to use their imagination to create their own ideal volunteer job based upon their talents, passions and personal strengths. Though Empower L.A. is a very recent program, people have begun to acknowledge its importance among nonprofit organizations. “Empower L.A. is a new effort helping to engage the community to reach out and help raise other people’s children who are living out of homecare,” said Daphna E. Ziman, chairwoman and founder of Children United Nations, who participated in the Day of the Child. “They have been able to get the community to take responsibility in helping and mentoring fostered and abused children who are caught in a revolving door of strangers.” Empower L.A. will showcase a number of events near the end of Spring 2008.Kicking off the Empower L.A. Event week, Celebrate L.A., a trade show recognizing various nonprofit organizations as well as corporate and business sponsorships in Los Angeles, will present 35,000 to 50,000 presidential service awards, and 1,000 nonprofit awards at the Rose Bull Stadium on April 26.Also, Volunteer Recognition Week is a potluck party that will give thousands of LAUSD schools the opportunity to choose a day to be named “Volunteer Recognition Day.”Lastly, on Sept. 11, 2008, Empower L.A. will be organizing the Pay It Forward Student Mentoring Program, in which older students will guide younger students in a hobby that both mentor and student will have interest in and benefit from. Empower L.A. is making sure that parents and grandparents get into the activity.”When you give a child strokes for acts of kindness,” Berglas said, “they will give out acts of kindness.”The event week plans to be launched on April 26 and ends on May 4.For more information about Empower L.A., go to: www.aunitedworld.org/ela.asp.