Science Center Gets $54K in Grants

The Vic and Bonnie Christensen Math, Science and Technology Center received $54,000 in grants last week for beautification and restoration projects. (Photo: Ann Christensen-Moore)

With funding only guaranteed through the end of the school year, volunteers at the Vic and Bonnie Christensen Math, Science and Technology Center have spent months coming together to save it from potentially closing. Two weeks ago, they received a boost in the form of $54,000 from the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation that will go to beautification projects and field trips.

“We found out in November that we were going to be recommended for it, and we found out in December that the foundation approved us,”said Ann Christensen-Moore, a retired science teacher whose parents saved the center from closing in the 1970s.

Christensen-Moore has spearheaded efforts to fix up the center with the goal of convincing the Los Angeles Unified School District to continue funding it. The district announced several years ago that it could no longer afford to operate the center — which has been called “the jewel of the LAUSD science program,” — and after unsuccessfully attracting a new potential operator, found funding for it through June.

Groups of volunteers from throughout the South Bay have spent several weekends sprucing up the facility, which has already relocated many of its animals to rescue organizations. Armstrong Garden Centers has provided gardening supplies for the volunteer weekends.

For the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation grants, the science center was sponsored by two nonprofits: the Taper Tiger Paws Parent Teacher Organization, which received $22,000, and Beacon House, which received $32,000 (Beacon House will give a number of men jobs refurbishing the green house and building animal habitats). 

The grants will fund orchard, garden and animal habitat restoration projects, as well as bus trips for each elementary school in San Pedro and Wilmington to take a field trip to the center.

“This is going to help let the school district know that we want it to stay open and that it’s a benefit to children,” Christensen-Moore said. “Right now we are just hoping when [the school board] comes together in April to do budgets again, they’ll see what we’ve done and keep it open.”

The next volunteer work day will be Feb. 1 from 8 a.m. to noon.