SOY moving into new spot after exit from Rea Elementary
Students play around on the new basketball court and gated soccer area, background, at the new SOY, Save Our Youth, headquarters located behind Rea Elementary School in Costa Mesa on Wednesday.
After more than two decades at Rea Elementary School, Save Our Youth has new digs, and they happen to be nearby.
The Costa Mesa-based nonprofit, which provides academic and recreational offerings for middle and high school students, recently began moving from the Westside campus to another parcel of Newport-Mesa Unified School District property nearby. That site, along Pomona Avenue, once housed adult education.
SOY expects to finish the move by September, when an open house is planned.
The move was triggered by the school district’s decision to turn portions of Rea into a new technology learning center, a change that also booted out the Costa Mesa Playhouse.
SOY had been at Rea since the organization’s founding in 1993. But it now has considerably more space than it did before, when it was split into two areas on the Rea campus, Silvia Rosales, SOY’s operations manager, said during a tour Wednesday.
In its new digs, it has exclusive use of four portable classrooms that are clustered, which in effect gives SOY its own wing.
SOY’s main center is a large portable split into two sections: one with a reception desk and recreational offerings such as a pool table and an air hockey table, and a second that will have a homework and tutoring area.
A short walk away are the three other portables. One is dedicated to music. A second is for dance and a third will be used for arts and crafts and SOY’s girls’ programming.
An athletic area is composed of a half basketball court, a gated blacktop surface for indoor soccer and an open-air weight room. The district built the facility this summer.
Mary Cappellini, a SOY board member, said her group is pleased with the change and credited Newport-Mesa Supt. Fred Navarro for his efforts to accommodate her organization.
“The school district has been fabulous with helping us relocate,” she said. “We’ve been thrilled that they’ve been so cooperative.”
Though SOY was able to find a new home, that hasn’t been the case yet for the Costa Mesa Playhouse, which has been based at Rea since 1984. The group has use of its theater until June but hasn’t secured a spot in the city for after that.
The playhouse lost its dressing room and storage areas at Rea earlier this year. It now stores materials offsite.
“We really don’t have any leads with [our move] at this point,” playhouse President Mike Brown said.
A center next to SOY’s former space at Rea that’s run by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Orange Coast — formerly known as the Boys & Girls Club of the Harbor Area — is staying put. The center has had programs this summer and plans to continue providing after-school activities when the school year starts.
“We were never asked to relocate,” club Chief Executive Robert Santana said in an email. “Our partnership with the Newport-Mesa district and Rea school is stronger than ever.”
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Bradley Zint, bradley.zint@latimes.com
Twitter: @BradleyZint
