SOUTH-CENTRAL : Local Chapter for Optimist Club

To provide educational enrichment programs and mentors for youths, a group of professionals and artists has opened a chapter of the International Optimist Club.

The 5-4 Optimist Club of Greater Los Angeles, at 310 W. 54th St., is the first such club in South-Central. It has 43 charter members. Organizers hope that by working with local schools and churches they can return resources to the community through dance, music, writing and speech classes.

Chapter President Margie Evans said the club will serve about 1,200 youths when it is fully operational in early summer.

“This has merged with our purpose to redevelop this area,” said Joan M. Miller, an attorney and charter member. “We know we have to start with the youth.”

The 1,200-square-foot space that will house the South-Central chapter was donated by Oliver W. Wilson, who owns the building at 54th Street and Broadway. The members plan to partly pay overhead costs for the volunteer-run programs by having jazz and blues concerts at the site.

Essay-writing and speech classes will begin in June, said Evans, a blues singer.

Miller, who is African-American, said outreach to the Latino community in South-Central will also be an important part of the club’s programming. “We want to include everybody,” she said. “The community doesn’t only include African-Americans.”

Evans said the club’s success will depend largely on the input of younger participants. “We don’t want to give the children the idea that we’re dictating their moves,” she said. “We’re just that bridge that will help them go where they need to go.”

Optimist International was founded in 1919 as a service club to help youths and now has more than 170,000 members in 4,300 chapters in the United States and Canada.