PACOIMA : MEND Help Center to Mark Reopening

For 23 years, the MEND Center has revived residents of the Northeast San Fernando Valley with distributions of food, clothing and medicine.

Now, the nonprofit organization is getting ready to celebrate a little healing of its own.

The MEND Center, short for Meet Each Need with Dignity, will celebrate its formal reopening June 2 after suffering $230,000 in damages in the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake.

The two-story, 10,000-square-foot structure was pummeled by the temblor, which ripped wide cracks in the interior and exterior walls and fouled up the plumbing and electrical systems. The building was yellow-tagged, and service to the residents of the community was relegated to a tent in the parking lot.

The rebuilding effort was directed by Kaufman and Broad, a development firm that volunteered to oversee subcontractors and negotiated reduced rates for materials.

In the reopening ceremony, MEND organizers will honor the developers, City Councilman Richard Alarcon and others in the community who offered donations or services to the organization after the quake ravaged its headquarters.

“It was very difficult in one sense; we had to flex all of our operations,” said MEND Executive Director Marianne Havel Hill.

“But the positive side was that the outpouring of support from the community was just wonderful.”

The ceremony, which is open to the public, will be held at 10 a.m. at 13460 Van Nuys Blvd.

For more information, call the center at (818) 896-0246.