1997 SABBATICAL RECIPIENTS

Sandra Bankhead serves as program director of the El Nido Family Centers. The organization provides pregnancy prevention services and counseling for parenting teens. Ms. Bankhead was also the producer and host of To The Point, a Golden Cable Award winning program shown on Continental Cablevision, which addresses an array of subjects affecting teens and young adults. As a young woman, Ms. Bankhead was herself a teen mother who raised four children while pursuing a master's degree in education as a scholarship student at the University of Southern California. She is currently at work on a book about the needs of teen parents.

Deborah Ching has served as director of Chinatown Service Center since 1980. The center provides health care, job training and social services to immigrant and refugee communities in the greater Los Angeles area. Ms. Ching was named 1997 Woman of the Year for State Assembly District 45 and is also the recipient of a Eureka Fellowship. Prior to joining the staff of the Chinatown Service Center, Ms. Ching was employed with the International Institute of Los Angeles and Project HEAVY-West.

Elisa Greben Crystal serves as the Executive Director for the Armory Center for the Arts, a community arts center that encourages broad public participation through innovative approaches to creating, exploring and presenting the visual and performing arts. For over 25 years, Ms. Crystal has worked to bring communities together through the arts, and has forged pathbreaking partnerships with schools and municipal agencies. Ms. Crystal's life-long engagement in community service was inspired by her father, who directed the urban parks system in Los Angeles County during the 1960s and '70s.

Steve LePore abandoned a career as Human Resources Director of the Landmark Entertainment Group to become the founder and Executive Director of My Friend's Place, an organization that provides services to at-risk youths in Hollywood. The organization offers free meals, HIV testing, health care, housing referrals, job training and counseling to more than 2,500 youth annually.

John Malpede is the founding Artistic Director for the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD). Begun in 1985, LAPD is a theater collective of homeless and formerly homeless individuals whose purpose is to help create community on Skid Row and to create public awareness about the "real deal" of life on the streets. Working with drug recovery programs, transitional housing and employment programs, LAPD reaches more than 300 Skid Row residents each month through workshops and original performances that speak of the collective hopes, dreams and problems of neighborhood residents.

Luis Mata has been the Executive Director for the Multicultural Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) since 1985. The Center is a family-oriented organization that promotes health care through educational interventions. During his 24 years of tenure in the field of health care and disability management, Mr. Mata has played a central role in developing national strategies to increase immunization rates among children, creating culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate training models in the health care arena, and in generating Spanish language media messages on such health hazards as second-hand smoke.

Ruth Slaughter has worked for more than 25 years in the nonprofit sector as a manager, trainer, community organizer and advocate for women's programs. Since 1990, she has been the director of the AIDS Prevention Division for PROTOTYPES, a Culver City-based organization that provides outreach services, education, and interventions to women, as well as research and training about AIDS. She has served on the California Women's Commission on Alcohol and Drug Dependencies, and has worked for such organizations as Haven House of Pasadena and the Pasadena Health Department Alcoholism Center.