Curt Toppel and his mother Haldis have pledged up to $20,000 in matching funds for maintenance at the Palisades Recreation Center, in honor of father/husband Kurt, a longtime community activist who celebrated his 80th birthday in May. ’I’ve been playing pro volleyball for the last nine years,’ Curt told the Park Advisory Board (PAB) at its quarterly meeting on July 25. ‘Since I was a little boy, this park has been part of my life. I played all of the sports’basketball, roller hockey, tennis’and it is appropriate to give back to the place that helped me become a successful athlete.’ ’We’ve ‘lived’ in this park as a family and we’d like to give back to the park,’ said Haldis Toppel, who serves on the PAB and was an active member of the Community Council for many years. ‘I have found that it is easy to get funds for new exciting projects, such as buildings and playing fields, but maintenance is not something that receives grants or special funding.’ Kurt Toppel earned Citizen of the Year honors in 1998 after playing a key leadership role in the campaign to finance and build a new gym at the park. He also served as president of the Community Council. Donations can be sent by check to the Palisades Community Center Committee, 11030 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 203, Los Angeles, CA 90025. The check should include the notation ‘Toppel Family Matching Fund.’ The PCCC is a 501(c)3 tax-deductible corporation that was created when the new gym was built in order to ‘facilitate improvement projects and maintenance of various aspects of the Palisades Recreation Center, allowing community members and organizations the ability to earmark funds to benefit the local facility specifically,’ said PCCC chairman Mike Skinner. The funds cannot be appropriated by the financially strapped L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks. Curt Toppel, a graduate of Loyola High School and Stanford, began playing for international pro volleyball teams in 2004. He has played for Caguas in Puerto Rich, Almeria in Spain, Crema and Genoa in Italy, Lares in Puerto Rich, Alexandoupolis in Greece, Hyundai in Korea, Unterhaching in Germany, Carolina in Puerto Rico, Al-Arabi in Qatar, Lamia in Greece, Sivas in Turkey and Karava in Cyprus. This year, Toppel was under contract with the Indonesian professional team Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI 46). He arrived in April to help the team reach the national playoffs and then win the championship on May 20. ‘Days before the game,’ Haldis said, ‘there were two-story-high billboards, featuring Curt,’all over Jakarta.’ Haldis delayed Kurt’s 80th birthday party so that Curt could fly home for the celebration on May 29 at the Heroes golf course on the VA grounds in West Los Angeles.
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