STUDENTS' BUSINESS IN THE MALL

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

TOWN CENTER OWNER AGREES TO RENT SPACE TO GLENDALE GROUP TO EDUCATE THEM ON BUSINESS SKILLS

By: ROBERT CHACON
NEWS-PRESS AND LEADER

The owner of one of Burbank's largest retail centers is reaching across Glendale's border to lend a hand to at-risk students.

Crown Realty & Development, owner of the Burbank Town Center, has agreed to allow We Care for Youth to utilize a 700-square-foot retail space for three years free of charge.

The Hoover High School nonprofit group, specializing in assisting students in danger of failing school, will open Bliss Unlimited, a store where the students will learn management skills while they create and sell corporate gift baskets, apparel and hand-crafted jewelry. Students from Burbank's public and private schools will also be eligible to work at the store.

Bliss Unlimited will open by the beginning of the fall semester. "Without Crown Realty, this would not have been possible," said Linda Maxwell, who along with Jose Quintanar, founded the group in 1991 with some 20 teenagers from rival gangs.

The lower-level storefront has been pulled off the market, even though other business owners have been asking to rent it, said Jim O'Neil, executive vice president of Crown Realty. Supporting education and giving back to the community fall under some of the company's guiding principles, O'Neil said. "We are excited with what they have to offer and are working with them to define what their needs are," he said, adding that although no lease has been signed, the deal is as good as done. Both sides will reevaluate Bliss Unlimited's performance at the end of the three-year period before deciding whether the lease will be extended.

This is not the first time We Care for Youth has opened a store in a local mall. The group operated a successful business in the Glendale Galleria from 1998 to 2001, bringing in several hundred-thousand dollars that helped fund salaries for staff and students and other programs that receive little financial assistance. Bliss Unlimited is expected to employ about 30 to 40 students who will work for minimum wage and credits from the Regional Occupational Program. To become eligible, students will have to enroll in job-training classes and work about 90 hours to receive five credits a semester.

While the gift baskets will be the major source of revenue, T-shirts, pants and other apparel manufactured by Home Boy Industries -- a Los Angeles-based job referral center run by at-risk, gang-involved youth -- will be sold.

"This will be more like a business academy, where kids can learn the nuance of running a business and how to be good human beings in the transacting of that business," Maxwell said.