During his stint in Sacramento, Guzman also helped create the Migrant Alternative Payment Program, a state Department of Education-funded program that provides child care for migrant worker families. He aided then-state Sen. Jim Costa in crafting the program. Through a spokeswoman, Costa said he and Guzman had a "good working relationship."

'A labor of love'

The son of migrant field workers from Mexico, Guzman understands the struggles of Fresno's most challenged youths, shackled by poverty and inequity. Helping disadvantaged youths through the Chicano Youth Center has become Guzman's life -- particularly since he was laid off last year from his full-time job at I-5 Social Services Corp.

Guzman worked as curriculum coordinator for the nonprofit organization, which runs state-funded day care centers in rural areas of Fresno and Madera counties. Guzman and several other I-5 employees lost their jobs with state budget cuts, said executive director Alex Valdez.

Guzman doesn't get paid for his work at the Chicano Youth Center, and neither do the board members -- it has been an all volunteer-run organization since it was created by students at California State University, Fresno, in the 1970s.

"I'm living on whatever meager funds I have and unemployment" benefits, he said. "It's called a labor of love."

The organization's funding, which comes entirely from grants and donations, has dropped off steadily over the past several years and continues to decline. In 1997, it received $152,599 in donations -- almost nine times what it gets today; in 2005, the year Guzman took over, the center took in $22,524.

Today, the Chicano Youth Center operates on a shoestring budget -- 2008 tax documents, the most recent available, show a budget of $20,580. Most of that pays for daily operations, including Internet and phones, and food and games for kids after school, Guzman said. The city parks department rents Guzman space in the Dickey Youth Center for $1 a year.

Guzman said he doesn't have staff to write grants, so he relies on small contributions from companies such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which gave $1,500 in 2010. The Fresno Regional Foundation gave grants ranging from $13,000 to $65,000 each year from 1997 to 2000, said chief executive officer Dan DeSantis. Its last gift was a $10,000 youth grant in 2008 that DeSantis said was very competitive.

With meager funding and staff, most of what the Chicano Youth Center does today is offer space to community groups for conferences and training, help the Fresno County Economic Opportunities Commission provide free lunches to children during the summer and join the city park and recreation staff in coordinating sporting events and other activities.

Its low profile and small operations have kept the organization a mystery to some residents of the Lowell neighborhood.

"We don't know them. We don't know what they do," said Don Simmons, a neighborhood resident and a humanics professor at Fresno State. "I'm not sure that they make any real difference here."

Other neighborhood residents weren't certain who Guzman was or what he did but agreed that the Dickey Center on Divisadero Street offered a refuge in a high-crime neighborhood where many children may not have a safe place to go after school.

Without the center, children "would be hanging out in front yards and parks and places where there is more crime," said Esther Delahay, a Lowell resident who works with neighborhood children at the nonprofit Fresno/Madera Youth for Christ.