Valley Cities Jewish Center Fetes $850,000 Expansion of Preschool

The Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys celebrated Sunday afternoon the beginning of an $850,000 expansion project that will provide extra space for its swelling day-care and nursery-school programs.

About 300 adults--and almost as many rowdy children--showed up for the festive 90-minute program under the vaulted ceiling of the center’s auditorium. Preschool children and senior citizens sandwiched a series of speeches between their songs on a stage covered with scaffolds that held a banner reading, “Let Our Center Grow.”

Although construction began last month, Sunday marked the first time community members had been able to view the project, said Dale Glasser, assistant director of the center.

When it is completed next spring, the expansion will add five classrooms and allow the center’s day-care and nursery-school programs to increase their enrollment by 100. Nearly 300 children already are enrolled and more than 250 are on a waiting list.

‘Long Time Coming’

“One hundred children and their families will be the beneficiaries of our project,” said Ben Streltzer, director of the center.

“It’s been a long time coming and we’re glad to be on our way,” Glasser said.

Through 45 minutes of short speeches by 10 speakers, including Los Angeles City Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Woo, the center was characterized as an integral part of the Jewish community in the San Fernando Valley. Of the 500,000 Jews who live in the Los Angeles area, more than 200,000 live in the Valley, said Leo Dozoretz of the Jewish Federation Council, San Fernando Valley Region.

“Institutions die when they cease to be of service” to the community they serve, Yaroslavsky said during his brief speech in which he also talked about growing up in Jewish centers on the Westside.

“This sort of becomes a second home to people in the community,” Glasser said as children darted in and out of the auditorium, which was decorated with balloons and streamers.

Outside, about a dozen parents sat with children too fidgety to sit still during the speeches. With his 5-year-old daughter, Courtney, swinging from his arms, Mark Sender of Van Nuys talked about the expansion.

Although it wouldn’t mean much to Courtney, who has been in the center’s nursery school program for 2 1/2 years, Sender said, “To her future brother or sister, it’s going to mean that there’s room for additional children.”