Youths, Mentors to Join in Community Fix-Up Day

Teenagers from tough neighborhoods and top Orange County business people are a combination you don’t see every day.

But it’s a matchup that will come together Saturday in a first-time program designed to expose kids at risk of joining gangs to the kind of people they don’t normally get a chance to meet--and spruce up some city parks and historic homes while they’re at it.

Dubbed Community Care Day, the hands-on, fix-it program will team volunteer mentors from businesses such as Home Depot and the Mission Viejo Co. with teenagers in counseling with a nonprofit gang prevention organization called Community Service Programs Inc.

There are basketball backboards to be tightened and swings to be replaced, barbecues to be installed and trees to be planted. And if the city officials who cooked up the idea have their way, there will be lessons to be taught and friends to be made. It all begins at Stanton City Hall at 8 a.m. Information: (714) 379-9222, Ext. 273.