A Family History of Helping Out

All her life, Sally Urenda has been helping others, mostly without fanfare or credit.

“No one has to know. You do it because you want to,” said the La Habra grandmother who wants to retire in three years to play with her four grandchildren.

But those who know the 60-year-old mother of three hardly believe she will ever retire.

Urenda is in her 17th year as executive director of the Gary Center, a food dispensing and social service agency in La Habra, where she has gained a reputation as one of the nice people.

The center provides food and other social services to 60 families and 360 individuals a week.

Urenda believes her work with the less fortunate is self-fulfilling, a trait handed down by her mother and father. “They were like that,” she said.

After 17 years with the Gary Center, founded by Hope Stafford--who named the center after her 17-year-old son, who died from drugs--Urenda admits she is slowing down.

“I used to be out four, five nights a week fighting for some cause, but I’m not doing it the way I used to,” she said. “Now I go home at 6 p.m. most nights.”

During her earlier days, she was fighting for causes.

“I’d give anything in the world to be young again and get involved all over again,” she said. “I loved it. When my mom was 75, she was was out there picketing stores.”

These days, Urenda’s aim is to help educate her “clients,” as she calls people seeking help at the center. Most of them have been referred there by such agencies as the courts, police and school system.

“I want to help make them self-sufficient and get them off the welfare rolls,” she said. “I’ve been told I’m crazy for saying that and that I’m callous and don’t give anything away.”

To a degree, the years at the center have toughened her.

“I’m not sitting here to tell you I’m the greatest,” she said. “Some people think I’m lousy.”

However, by way of explanation, she adds, “I don’t like people coming in here and telling us off or insulting my employees.”

And what’s more, “I don’t tolerate rudeness from anyone. I tell people I’m sorry they are homeless, but I didn’t put them there. I don’t have to take crap from anyone,” is the way she plainly puts it.

Urenda, a Fullerton Union High School graduate who also attended Fullerton College and Cal State Fullerton, thinks education is the sure way to a better life for the people using the center. “They have to learn a better way to live and maybe to find a way to start their life,” she said. “They just need a little push.”

Before working at the center, Urenda was an adult educator with the La Habra School District, teaching parents how to care for their children and themselves at home.

“I feel real good I’m here and have helped make the center what it is today,” she said. “I think (the center’s administrators) like me.”

Stafford, the center’s founder who takes an active role in its operation, agrees with that thought. “She is a wonderful person,” Stafford said.

Santa Ana chiropractor Christine Veltri, 28, is back home after treating an array of world-class athletes at the African Athletics Championship in Cairo, held in early October.

“I got a valuable learning experience,” said the Huntington Beach woman who plans to attend the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona as the chiropractor for the Nigerian track team.

Veltri, who changed from a physical therapy career to become a chiropractor, specializes in treating athletes.