Speech written for Ive Markovits, Penny Lane Centers founder.

IVE MARKOVITS - ANTELOPE VALLEY SPEECH

Approximately 10 minutes

Buenos noches, amigas y amigos.  Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  I am so honored to be your keynote speaker for the Antelope Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 9th Annual Installation Awards Dinner.  Your theme, “Expanding Unity,” is extremely timely for Penny Lane, as we are in the process of expanding our own services here in the Antelope Valley, where they are so sorely needed.

But first, a little about me.  (Smile, it’s a joke.)  Everyone calls me Ive.  This is not how I usually approach a speaking engagement, but you kindly asked me to talk about my background, how I came to the United States, which I did with my family when I was a teenager, and, more importantly, what led me to start Penny Lane Services.

I consider myself one of the luckiest women on the face of the earth.  I was born in Puerto Rico to a family of very strong, well-educated, forward-thinking, extremely independent women.  To be a feminist in a Latin-American country at that time was almost unheard of.  Yet, my role models – my mother and grandmother – were incredibly passionate about women’s issues and practiced feminism in their daily lives, even back then.  They showed me how to live my life con ganas! 

Besides the inner strength and resolve these women passed on to me genetically, they and all of my family members instilled in me a very deep-seated sense of social conscience.  This coupled with the era in which I matured – the tumultuous sixties when social consciousness was the order of the day – how could my life not have been dedicated to people in need?  How could I not have founded an organization such as Penny Lane? 

This is not to say that success or advancement came easily to this Latina – as I know it has not for others.  But look at what we have accomplished, despite the odds.  We have a new woman president of Chile.  The entire Argentine cabinet is all women – even the minister of defense!  I salute all of my sisters who are out there working hard to make something of themselves and I say to them…Si, mis hermanas!  Si se puede! 

In the late 1960s I was working as a Los Angeles County Probation Department placement officer, responsible for finding adequate foster care for delinquent girls.  I was so frustrated with the lack of support and services for these youngsters who were being treated like hardened criminals, that in 1969 I opened a group home in Altadena with a 25 bed facility.  I named it for the cheerful Beatles song, “Penny Lane,” which depicts a child’s memory of an idyllic street.   Believe me; these children needed a dream to latch on to.

Those days were lean, let me tell you.  We constantly battled money shortages and other kinds of necessary support.  But we persevered, and today, Penny Lane Centers is an independent private nonprofit community-based human services organization that provides a continuum of care to more than 2000 children and teens and their families annually. 

These kids – aged newborn to 22 years old – come to us with histories of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or exposure to domestic violence, drug and/or alcohol abuse.  What some of these young people have been through is heartbreaking.  But by providing a range of integrated services to help these children and their families achieve their highest level of functioning, self reliance, and autonomy, you would be so amazed at the turnaround in these wonderful human beings.  I have so many great, heartwarming success stories I could share, but I’ll save those for another time.

Our mission at Penny Lane is to encourage hopes and dreams by empowering everyone to achieve their potential.  Our vision is to be a leader in child welfare, mental health, and social services by setting trends that showcase our creativity and commitment to our communities.  Our values emphasize individualized personal- and family-centered services – empowering families and individuals to live as independently as possible by building on and nurturing the strengths innate in every individual and family; by encouraging new beginnings and resilience in each individual; and advocating for the needs of children and families.

This brings me to the Antelope Valley and the growing need for services in this community. 

The Antelope Valley remains one of the very few affordable places in Los Angeles County.  Because housing prices have always been lower, the area has long attracted young families who want a start-up home – families seeking a community safe from gangs, crime, and street violence, and a place with better schools for their children and teens.  Not surprisingly, the valley’s population doubled between 1990 and 2000; since then it has increased another 20 percent. 

Today, one out of every seven residents lives on isolated farms and ranches, in housing and trailer home clusters in unincorporated County areas.  While most residents live in owner occupied single family homes, many low-to-moderate income owners also share housing with extended family members as well as strangers.  The crowding of young families with children in the same dwelling with extended family or unrelated adults is a major risk factor for child sexual exploitation.

For the most economically marginal families such as those who are undocumented and chronically homeless, housing in the area remains problematic.  Nearly 7,500 households do not have cars and as many as 30,000 have only one car.

While the Valley has been the answer to a prayer for many families longing for their own homes and a safer neighborhood, it has presented a problem that, I’m sure, was completely unforeseen.  About 70 percent of the Antelope Valley’s working adults must commute to jobs in the Los Angeles basin.  This leaves parents commuting very long hours – departing home in the early morning and returning late in the evening.  Tens of thousands of children in this Valley are latchkey virtually every weekday of the year.  

I don’t want to ram statistics down your throat, but you already know that the reality is that the idyllic life people once sought out here has turned into precisely what they wanted to flee.  Gangs, crime, substance abuse, the socio-economic makeup of the area and the isolation caused by inadequate transportation has created, for many low income persons, an environment in which risk of community violence is omnipresent. 

The Valley’s child population is 46 percent African American, Latino, and Native American.  Birth rates to African American teens in the area are nearly twice that of teens nationwide.  Imagine how few services are available for these children, as well as for the many who are immigrants and non-English speaking – fearing to seek out help because of fear or shame.

We recognized a growing need for our services and in 1993 opened Penny Lane’s first Antelope Valley facility.  Currently located in Lancaster, Penny Lane provides intensive ongoing support to approximately 1000 Antelope Valley child and teen victims of abuse, abandonment, and neglect, as well as teens and families challenged by mental illness, permanent affordable housing for otherwise homeless families with young children, housing for young adults transitioning from foster care to independence, and family preservation support to families in crisis and at high risk for child endangerment.  We have sorely outgrown this facility.

So tonight, I am very excited and pleased to tell you that in January 2008 we will open the doors of the Penny Lane Center’s Antelope Valley Family Center.  It will be home to the full range of services, including an expanded foster family agency/adoptions service and expanded therapeutic clinical services, community services, and administrative headquarters.  The Center will house the full range of Penny Lane outpatient and community services and provide the community with full continuum of family services.

Modeled after the Penny Lane San Fernando Valley Family Center facility, our Antelope Valley Center will be a warm and welcoming place in the community to which any family can come – not only in times of need, but as a regular part of everyday living.

This Penny Lane journey has been rocky at times.  Many times, actually.  But I couldn’t have chosen a more rewarding path in life.  The people who work with me at Penny Lane, including my husband Andres and my brother (name) who have been in on this from the beginning, all have the most incredible love in them for their fellow humans that I have ever seen.  I am proud to see them in action every day – loving what they do as much as I do.  You see?  It’s not so much about the road ahead.  It’s the determination in your soul that gets you where you want to be in life.

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