New Chop’s chief eager to help Santa Rosa kids

Lorez Bailey loved her job.

At SAY, the Santa Rosa-based Social Advocates for Youth, she headed up initiatives to prepare young people to attain admission to college or rewarding work not requiring a degree.

One day Bailey was invited to come down to the Railroad Square/West End neighborhood and tour Chop’s Teen Club, the uncommon community asset whose mission includes equipping teens with workplace readiness. Bailey’s host, Chop’s executive director, Diana Curtin, was eager to engage with others committed to youth development.

The two women toured the music studio, tech lab, cafe, sports space, teaching kitchen, art room and other attractions within the two-story clubhouse at West Sixth and Adams streets that was conceived, designed and constructed for the benefit and enjoyment of Santa Rosa’s children.

Bailey surprised herself when she thanked Curtin and turned to leave Chop’s. She recalls, “I literally walked out the door, stood and looked at the building and said, ‘One day I will be the director here.’”

That was only about two years ago. Bailey learned last fall that Curtin was leaving Chop’s to become co-director of the anti-bullying nonprofit Community Matters, and she applied for the post.

Today she occupies the director’s upstairs office at Chop’s and feels she is where she is supposed to be.

“I’m built for this,” she said.

The 48-year-old mother of three daughters and wife of Andre Bailey, an adjunct faculty member and equal-opportunity advisor at Sonoma State University, can’t say with certainly that there’s not another teen center like Chop’s anywhere else in America. But she’s pretty sure there can’t be many.

Frequently, a place for teens to meet, play, create and learn outside of school is located within some sort of hand-me-down building. And it’s Lorez Bailey’s impression that they typically don’t last long.

“Here we are at 17 years,” she said.

Chop’s opened in 2001 on the corner formerly occupied by the historic and beloved Lena’s Italian restaurant. The clubhouse was a posthumous gift from a member of one of the city’s most accomplished Italian-American families: attorney, banker and former mayor Charles “Chop” DeMeo.

He and his wife, Helene, didn’t have children. When the frugal and simple-living Charles DeMeo died as a widower in 1995, he left more than $15 million for the benefit of the city’s kids.

That money built the clubhouse and provides nearly half of the annual operating budget of $1.1 million.

Santa Rosans in grades seven through 12 are invited to make use of their gift from DeMeo for a membership fee of a buck a year.

“We don’t let parents past the lobby,” Bailey said.

“We let them (the teens) know this is really their place.”

She said that as much as she likes the clubhouse that used to be Lena’s - and the four salvaged dining room chairs that surround a round table in her office - she values even more the mentoring of teens that happens there.

The adults who work at Chop’s aren’t mere attendants but specialists and role models.

In the barista program, the art studio and elsewhere in the building, Bailey said, club members have fun while forging relationships and learning skills that may boost their life experience.

As she digs into her job, Bailey senses that her initial priority is not to expand or refine the programs, but to make it possible for more of Santa Rosa’s teens to take advantage of them.

“The biggest thing for us is transportation,” she said. Elated to be there, the new chief at Chop’s plots a shuttle service that will help young people to get there.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.