May 12, 2008

Nonprofit awards local youth group

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

A Bay Area nonprofit honored a group of East Palo Alto activists over the weekend for its work in the community, which included pressuring a hazardous waste handler to shut down.

Youth United for Community Action, or YUCA, formed about 10 years ago and has been involved in several important issues affecting East Palo Alto, most notably the long-running campaign to oust Romic Environmental Technologies Corp. from the city.

On Saturday, YUCA was recognized by the Crissy Fields Center, a nonprofit partnership that promotes awareness and education about environmental problems in urban settings.

Sue King, the center's marketing manager, said YUCA was one of four organizations honored with a "Community Heroes" award for taking on and raising awareness of important issues.

"We also love the fact that YUCA is a youth driven organization," King said. "They (are) very hands on and very organized."

YUCA is a household name in East Palo Alto, mostly because of its push to close Romic's facility there. The group first focused its efforts on the violation-prone company in 1999.

Citing market challenges and rising costs, Romic's owners finally sold the business last summer to Clean Harbors Environmental Services, though it remains unclear how much of an impact YUCA's frequent protests had on the subsequent shuttering of the East Palo Alto site, which wasn't included in the sale.

The group's director, 34-year-old Oscar Flores, said the closure was one of YUCA's biggest victories.

"But it was a community issue, not just a youth issue," Flores said.

YUCA has also lobbied city leaders to push for better public benefits from developers, and recently began protesting rent increases by Page Mill Properties and educating affected tenants about their legal rights.

Annie Loya, 24, has been with YUCA since it started and will take over Flores' post after he leaves later this year.

"We're pretty excited to receive this award," she said. "We just hope (it) inspires other communities to continue their fight."

Saturday's ceremony was held at the San Francisco Presidio. The Crissy Fields Center, a partnership between the nonprofit Golden Gate National Conservancy and the National Parks Service, will display a multimedia exhibit on each winner for a year. The showcase includes photos of the activists and examples of their work, King said.

Other Community Heroes award recipients were Barbara Wenger, founder of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group; Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth, or HOMEY; and Karen Cohn and the staff of the Children's Environmental Health Promotion Program in the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

For more information on the award, visit www.crissyfield.org.



E-mail Banks Albach at balbach@dailynewsgroup.com.