TIMES HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN - Agency serves families in poverty

The 9-year-olds were smiling broadly as they raced through past lessons and their favorite books.

Kari Vides commented that her friend Daniel Ruiz "gets math problems really fast" and then pointed to a wall where student-rendered posters geographically positioned her charter school, which is tucked behind a McDonald's on East 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

"We live in the Milky Way, we live on planet Earth, we live on the continent of North America and in the state of California. We live in the city of Los Angeles," Kari said, pointing to student representations of each.

What the self-proclaimed future scientist didn't mention was that within the city, Kari was downtown; more specifically, on skid row.

It's not surprising that Kari didn't mention the teeming streets outside the charter school operated by Para Los Ninos, said Giselle Acevedo, the nonprofit group's president and chief executive, because "the school is designed to be an oasis."

"Every child has the right to be safe," Acevedo said, tiptoeing through a group of youngsters taking their afternoon nap at the school. "This has to be a safe environment, because they're not coming from a safe environment."

The organization got its start in 1980 as a result of the efforts of Tanya Tull, a local community activist who now runs Beyond Shelter, a group that advocates for the homeless.

She read a newspaper article about the plight of children living on skid row and organized a group to purchase an abandoned downtown factory. Eventually they turned it into an alternative school.

Para Los Ninos is one of Southern California's most successful nonprofits serving families living in poverty.

The organization has at least 24 sites in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, including the kindergarten-through-fifth-grade charter school, dozens of early childhood development and after-school programs, and family resource centers that offer mental-health counseling and job services, among others.

All told, Para Los Ninos serves at least 5,000 families each year, including children and young adults ranging from 6 weeks to 21 years old. The typical family profile is a single mother with three or four children.

Acevedo said Para Los Ninos works because it uses a comprehensive approach to youth education that targets the entire family, not just the parents or the children.