Volunteers pitch in to keep Yonkers PAL going

Len Maniace
The Journal News
December 28, 2008

YONKERS - In the cavernous hall of a former armory, young men loped up and down basketball courts, while in an adjacent room another group scarfed down pizza and fried chicken set out on platters alongside a boxing ring.

It was a few days before Christmas and the food was there for a modest holiday party at the Yonkers Police Athletic League, an organization that, like its surrounding neighborhood, knows how to make do with less.

For the last three weeks, the PAL has been without its actual police - two officers and a lieutenant - who were shifted to local precincts as City Hall grappled with a $16 million budget gap.

For a time, it looked as if the city's financial problems would defeat the PAL, locking it out of its home, a turreted red-brick building on North Broadway. But volunteers stepped up to save - at least for now - the PAL, which offers sports, recreation and tutoring to some of the poorest children in Yonkers.

The volunteers' arrival provided a much-needed Christmas present to the PAL, though some of its young participants say they miss the police, and the feeling of safety and certainty the officers provided.

Denzel Villar, a serious-sounding 13-year-old and dedicated boxer, relies on the PAL for much of his daily training regimen: basketball, punching bags and time in the ring. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of this father, David Villar, who has a slew of trophies from his boxing days that began with the PAL, and included participation in six Golden Gloves, the amateur boxing tournament that's produced many champion boxers.

"They have a lot of programs here that can keep you out of trouble. And you have fun," Denzel Villar said.

Vic Federico has been running the PAL softball program for 2 1/2 years. When the police officers left, Federico recruited eight parents of team members to keep the gym open.

"We're trying to get the kids back into the building because it's not a great neighborhood. PAL provides a safe haven," Federico said.

Sal Corrente was already volunteering four to five hours a night at the PAL. He's added another hour or two each day. A retired 36-year-veteran of the Yonkers Police Department, Corrente started the PAL boxing program in the mid-1970s by accident.

"One kid approached me to help him get into the Golden Gloves. A friend of his said, 'Go see the singing cop down in Getty Square,' " Corrente recalled.

Corrente had a reputation among teens for being approachable. He had played college football and had become known as "the singing cop" after appearing in police uniform on an old TV show, Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour."

Before long, Corrente was working full time for the PAL. By his count, Corrente has trained 28 Golden Glove champions.

News that the police were pulling out of the PAL distressed Corrente, who has lived through at least one earlier threat of the PAL's closing.

"What people don't understand is that the PAL is a crime-prevention unit. It's keeping kids off the street," Corrente said. "My experience is that these kids are looking for something to belong to. Half of them are lost souls out there."

For Corrente, the infusion of volunteers, though welcome, only softened the loss. The police, he insists, are an essential part of the organization.

"It's always been my contention that we want to show these kids that we are regular people. 'We cry like you guys. We laugh like you guys,' " Corrente said. "Here they get to see us as normal human beings. Normally these kids are afraid of cops."

Sitting in the gym's bleachers, Louis Rivera, 21, later picked up Corrente's point.

"I grew up in the streets. PAL took me out of that. This is like home to me," said Rivera, who has participated in the PAL's boxing program for four years. "PAL is a beautiful place."

Rivera has made it to the Golden Gloves quarterfinals in each of the past two years and hopes to improve on that record in 2009. Even though he can take care of himself, Rivera said the police officers' presence at PAL gave teens a feeling of safety. That's something not duplicated even by the presence of police in the city's Youth Bureau elsewhere in the same building, he said.

The PAL officers shared the basketball courts with kids, took them on outings and knew their names, Rivera said.

"The cops were playing right here," Rivera said. "If there was something about to break out, they would be right here."