Challis and her daughter, Diahna Fortuna, listen as TV Skype is set up for Challis to hear Certificate of Appreciation by the City of Los Angeles being read to her in July at a VNC meet. Challis was known for always wearing a hat.

Challis one of the Venice activists for many years will be honored by having the Los Angeles City Council meeting Tuesday adjourn in her honor. Challis passed away Wednesday, 19 August. Challis Macpherson 9 September 1936 to 19 August 2015.

If there was a logical cause, a need, Challis was willing to go to limit for it.

Challis has been an activist in Venice since this generation and the generation before can remember. She was instrumental in the creation of the Venice Grassroots Town Council. She was active in the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) when it got going.

Challis’ words of advice to all, according to her husband Wallace Macpherson and daughter Diahna, was: “Get out there; get cracking, kick some ass, and don’t stop until you’ve won!”

Ballona Wetlands
“I joined the Friends of Ballona Wetlands and helped Ruth Lansford get all the land West of Lincoln in Playa Vista turned over to wetlands,” she wrote to her daughter. “Make no mistake, the Friends of Ballona Wetlands were the first environmental group to bring Playa Vista to the negotiating table and save all the wetlands West of Lincoln.”

Chair of LUPC
She will most recently be remembered for her chairing of the VNC Land Use and Planning Committee. After she retired from that, she wrote the template for all VNC to have a LUPC. She travelled throughout the City teaching about LUPC. She was instrumental in establishing Plan Check.

Monday’s Land Use and Planning Committee meet will be in her honor, according to Chair Robin Rudisill.

Challis had approximately 26 years local land use experience: Venice Town Council’s (VTC) Land Use Committee, Councilmember Galanter’s Community Planning Advisory Committee (CPAC), and the Venice Neighborhood Council’s LUPC.

Founder of PVJOBS
One of the things she is most proud of was founding PVJOBS which helps place at-risk youth and adults in career-track employment. She insisted and got it in writing that ten percent of the work force for all developments in Playa Vista were to employ these at-risk kids and adults. PVJOBS has a success rate of over 90 percent, according to Challis.

“Once a kid gets a mark on his record, no one hires him,” she once said. “Most of the guys only stole diapers for their babies.” She felt they deserved a second chance. Someone said that amounted to 3000 being employed.

PVJOBS now places at risk individuals with private firms and public entities all over the city and is becoming a national model for at risk hiring.

Loved an Entrance
The other side of Challis was her clothing. “She was an excellent seamstress,” according to her friend Liz Wright. She designed and sewed all her clothes and loved to be the center of attraction when she arrived. She made all her hats and was not to be seen without one on. Her latest delight was painting shoes.

She was very active in the American Sewing Guild. This included sponsoring, donating, and teaching at the sewing club at the Venice Boys and Girls Club. She also was an officer in the Wearable Arts Connection, an educational organization that focused on combining sewing with artistic creativity.

She and Wallace bought their home in the Oxford Triangle in 1970’s. She was married to Wallace for almost 50 years. They were married on Valentine’s Day 1969. She became the Neighborhood Watch and united the community by doing such. She had a BA in Fine Arts from UCLA.