Led by Malibu resident Dilys Tosteson Garcia, the nonprofit CASA, which provides foster youth services, has attracted support from celebrities such as Sean Astin. The 10th annual Glamour Gowns event, which provides a night of dress up and enchantment for foster girls, takes place Saturday.
By Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
During last weekend, “Rudy” returned to the football field, and this time, he played in Malibu.
It wasn’t American football, but at last Saturday’s fundraiser for CASA of Los Angeles, Sean Astin, star of the 1993 underdog-athlete movie “Rudy,” played in a celebrity soccer game at Pepperdine University’s Alumni Park. The weather held up beautifully for “Kicks for Casa,” a Kappa Alpha Theta sorority-hosted event, where about 500 people cheered on Astin, best known for his work in “The Goonies” and, of course, for his role Samwise Gamgee in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
An eclectic roster of celebrities joined Astin for the fundraiser included Christopher Atkins (“The Blue Lagoon”), Melissa Biggs (“Baywatch”), Kiko Ellsworth (“Dexter”), Melissa Hunter (“Entourage”) and Richard Steinmetz (“Heroes”).
The event supported CASA/LA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), a nonprofit organization that serves foster children.
In addition to last Saturday’s Kappa Alpha Theta event, the 10th annual Glamour Gowns, a private event empowering young foster girls, takes place on April 16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Overseeing the proceedings is a longtime Malibu resident Dilys Tosteson Garcia, executive director of CASA/LA.
Garcia is still glowing over the “Kicks” event (“Awesome!”), which proceeds are earmarked to CASA of Los Angeles and National CASA, specifically toward subsidizing public awareness efforts.
CASA’s main office is based in the Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park, with a satellite office in Lancaster that serves the Antelope Valley at the Alfred J. McCourtney Juvenile Justice Center. Los Angeles County has the largest foster care population in the country (25,000 children), so CASA is always recruiting and training people to advocate on behalf of foster kids.
With the soccer match event behind them, CASA will now focus on this Saturday’s “Glamour Gowns” event.
“Glamour Gowns is one of our signature events,” Garcia said. “We basically create a store in what is essentially a raw space. Foster girls come from all over the Los Angeles County system and they get a head-to-toe dressing experience … a new dress, new shoes, jewelry, accessories. They’ll be completely made to be beautiful. Last year, we clothed almost 400 girls.
“These are kids who got the short end of the stick. It’s a terrific self-esteem builder.”
With her partner, Lola Jackson, Garcia enjoys life in the Corral Canyon part of Malibu, where she has lived since 1983. Nearby, the couple enjoys “eating at Malibu Seafood and walking on Westward Beach and stop in at the Sunset.
“I’m a beach girl with a heart,” Garcia said. “I grew up originally in Puerto Rico, went to school at Stanford, and I came down to L.A. because it was warmer.”
June will mark the one-year anniversary of Garcia’s employment at the nonprofit. She brought to CASA her extensive experience in advertising, marketing, and consulting clients who work with at-risk children, and she said she couldn’t be happier.
“It’s been an amazing year,” she said. “It is a very unique organization. We empower community citizens to come in and help these foster kids … and help them get beyond the trauma they’ve experienced.”
CASA is a nonprofit arm of a defunct state program that has been spun off into a nonprofit organization. Last year, CASA raised $1 million annually to serve 8,000 Los Angeles County children “and we’ll now strive to break $2 million a year,” Garcia said.
About 7,000 children have enjoyed one-time advocacy services, and for about 600 children a year, “we provide an individual long-term advocate for two or three years,” Garcia said. “A volunteer makes a pretty big commitment when they decide to do this work.”
Some Malibu-area CASA volunteer child advocates include Jan Brice, Nancy Jo Paul, Edina Somlai and Joan MacLaughlin. These longtime volunteers, Garcia said, “work with these children until outstanding issues are deemed resolved by the judge. We also have many generous donors from Malibu, whom we thank for their ongoing support.”
“I have been involved in CASA’s mission for three eventful years,” said Somlai, a foreign national from Hungary. “I moved to beautiful Malibu with my husband a couple of years ago.
“Soon after I finished my training I got my first case,” she continued. “I find the experience truly life changing. Neglected and abused teens need someone to speak up for them. That became so clear when I first saw a youngster in a courtroom holding onto nothing else but a court-provided teddy bear. These teens go through so much during their formative years. It is a great feeling to be there, advocating for them.”
Brice said, “Having the opportunity, not only to investigate the circumstances of a child in foster care, but also to be able to make recommendations to a judge in Dependency Court that may be life changing for that child means that we really are ‘a powerful voice in child’s life,’ just like the CASA motto says.”
In the 25 years that Brice has been a CASA volunteer, “my most memorable case was finding a wonderful adoptive home for a 9-year-old African American boy, who had been in foster care since birth,” she said. “When he was seven years old and ran away from his foster home, the judge assigned me to be his CASA advocate.”
Paul has been a court-appointed special advocate since 1995.
“For my first 12 years or so as a CASA, I took on very challenging cases,” Paul said. “My children ranged from ages four to 17. Most of my children were in foster care or group homes. Each situation presented its own set of difficulties.”
During the past three years, Paul has worked at the E. Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park.
“Some of the parents of these children were working very hard to retain custody of their child,” she said. “Others were no longer in the child’s life. As one would expect, happy endings were few and far between … CASA’s responsibilities are endless and no two cases are alike.”
“By creating human relationships,” Somlai said, “we are not only becoming a team to face their challenges together, but these bonds are all so critical to each of our teens’ future development and success.
“Becoming a CASA [volunteer] enriched my life in so many ways,” Somlai continued. “I found not only purpose but thousands of like-minded friends, too.”
Ultimately, what’s good for this organization will be good for L.A.’s foster youth.
“We not only are trying to keep the program operating but also trying to make sure that the organization is healthy and ready to grow,” Garcia said.
CASA is an entity in a transitional phase, but Garcia prefers to express it another way: “I like to use the word ‘transformational.’”
More information on CASA, including how to volunteer, can be obtained online at www.casala.org.