Airline Exec Flies Funding Into Watts Youth Programs

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By LESLIE JONES


Contributing Reporter

A complex offering fine arts instruction, academic tutoring and other services and activities for children is taking shape in Watts.


That’s thanks in part to the chairman of Northwest Airlines who has pledged a $300,000 grant to Strive, a non-profit organization running the nascent complex. The grant will go to salaries for full-time faculty.


“I’ve made quite a bit of money in my life,” said Northwest Chairman Gary Wilson of his donation. “And you can’t take it with you.”


The mission of Strive is to improve the community by supporting area children with a clean, positive environment where kids can benefit from academic and creative activities. Also on tap are community events such as a monthly jazz night where local teens will be hired to cater and host. Teens will have to apply as for any other job, but the program is meant to teach young people about how to get and maintain employment.


Strive recently finished turning two donated warehouses into an 11,000-square-foot enclosed mini campus. Wilson issued a $125,000 matching grant in 2004 to aid the completion of construction.


The new facilities are the realization of a 16-year-old dream for Strive’s founder and director, Jim Tetreau.


In 1990 Tetreau left his job as a manager at a luxury hotel so he could devote himself to children of Los Angeles. After studying at demographics to find where children were neediest, he picked Watts. The 1992 riots slowed progress, but Tetreau was able to secure two donated warehouses. The process took a lot longer than Tetreau had expected. He’d approached celebrities he knew from his days in the luxury hotel industry and had thought his efforts would have been met with more support. But “I couldn’t comp suites and limousines anymore,” he said.


It did help, though, that Wilson stepped up with his pledge and mailed hundreds of letters to friends friends with last names like Hilton, Eisner and Spielberg. Tetreau says Wilson would come to visit the site in the mid-’90s, sit on a crate and listen to ideas for the future.


As a matter of principle, Tetreau and other organizers haven’t sought any government funding. Tetreau sees part of the problem in Watts being the mindset that nothing can get done without government aid. To encourage responsibility and participation, Strive will charge $25 per quarter and $1 per class attendance starting next year.


Tetreau is frustrated when he has to spend the first half hour of his day painting over graffiti. This has been happening less frequently, though, since local gang members told Tetreau they’re getting the word out to leave Strive alone. Strive is beginning to gain the trust of a community that’s used to seeing do-gooders set up shop for six months, get frustrated and leave, Tetreau said.


The organization will develop arts programs based on interest. Right now the Saturday ballet classes, taught by a former member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, have a waiting list. Tetreau is eager to hire four new faculty members who will allow Strive to serve more children and stay open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

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