Bruin Angel: A friend and tutor to a homeless girl

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, Cindy Cordova was safe and sound thousands of miles away in Southern California. But the repercussions from that catastrophic event touched her life in a way she probably never could have imagined.

 

Eager to volunteer, Cordova — who is assistant to Dean Aimee Dorr in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies — left her job for three weeks to work at an American Red Cross call center in Bakersfield, where she helped desperate Katrina victims phoning in from everywhere. One woman wanted to kill herself. She was not only homeless, but her children had been robbed of the few clothes they owned. Her car had been stolen, her job was gone, and suicide looked like the only way out of this cycle of despair.

 

For 45 minutes, Cordova tried to console and reason with the woman as the volunteer waited for a mental health counselor to take over the call. “What could I tell her? Her loss was so great. The only thing I could say was that she had to live for her kids.”

 

The experience, which left her shaken, only motivated Cordova to reach out to more people in need over the past four years — to 11-year-old Diana (not her real name), whose home life is so unstable that she has attended five different schools in the past year; to a lonely 96-year-old African American woman whom Cordova visits weekly; to people who couldn’t afford a Thanksgiving meal this year. Currently, she has applied for two volunteer jobs at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and a help/suicide prevention hotline.

 

“I just love doing it. I think it comes from my mom,” said Cordova, who seeks out multiple volunteer opportunities that she can squeeze into a schedule already packed with good deeds. Cordova recalled, growing up, how she went with her mother to deliver food to a shelter for abused women and took clothes to a home for pregnant teens. Likewise, if a wildfire breaks out or if food needs to be delivered to the poor, Cordova is there, as she was when an evacuation center opened in the Verdugo Hills area for people fleeing the Station Fire. She has also walked miles in charity events to raise money for cures.

 

Through a tutoring program for homeless youth, Cordova met Diana and her mother living in a shelter. “You would never know, meeting this kid, that her life is so unstable. She’s such a great kid, so smart and polite,” said the volunteer, who took the girl out weekly to museums and the movies and for other adventures.

 

But 10 months into their relationship, Diana was on the move again, disappearing into the giant foster care system until Cordova, who tried unsuccessfully to find her for six weeks, got a call from her assigned attorney. “She had been trying to find me the whole time,” Cordova said. “When I heard that, it warmed my heart.” Cordova and Diana — her mentor’s contact information committed to memory — are back together again.

 

“I hate it when people say, ‘The more you give, the more you get back.’ That sounds selfish. You don’t give to get something back. But the truth is, you do get something back. Every time I leave Diana,” she said, “I realize I’ve learned something new about myself, about her, about the world.” 

 

 

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Helping women find their place in the world: Julie Sina  

 

And check out the UCLA Volunteer Center to get involved in the L.A. community.