A party where pain is the main guest

It was a party sponsored by an organization you pray you should never need, a party where the sign-in sheet was full of names of the dead.

Frank, shot dead by a drug dealer over a debt that wasn’t his.

Jamiel, shot dead while talking on his mobile phone by a suspect who chose him at random.

Danny, shot dead walking home from work.

“He was shot 12 feet from his front door three years ago,” said Donna Arviso, who is Danny Arviso’s aunt. He was 19 and wearing his uniform from his shipping-and-receiving job at the Port of Los Angeles. Despite a $50,000 reward, the case remains unsolved.

“The pain never goes away,” she said.

On Saturday, though, the pain was at least shared during a holiday party and toy giveaway sponsored by Justice for Murdered Children, a San Pedro-based nonprofit that advocates for and offers assistance to families who have lost loved ones to homicide.

Family members of several dozen murder victims attended the event at a Carson community center. Each was asked to sign in with the name of the deceased, followed by the gender and ages of the children who would be receiving donated toys gift-wrapped by volunteers.

“For parents who’ve lost children, the holidays are the hardest time of year to cope,” said Joyce Mason, a member of the group’s governing committee.

“A lot of times, parents will just shut down emotionally because of depression. They’ll tend to forget the needs of their other kids — forget to even buy them presents. Here, the kids can still celebrate the holiday without putting pressure on Mom and Dad.”

Mason understands all this from experience. Her nephew was gunned down six years ago after a friend of his got into an altercation. He was 19.

“Every person here has a story,” Mason said.

Jamiel Shaw’s story made headlines.

His 17-year-old son, Jamiel Shaw II, was gunned down near his home in L.A.’s Arlington Heights neighborhood in 2008, allegedly by a gang member and illegal immigrant who had been released from jail the day before.

The apparently random killing of Shaw, a high school football star who was being recruited by Stanford and Rutgers, stunned people.

“He was just out looking for someone to kill,” his father said of the alleged shooter, who is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty. “Every year I see his friends, they’re all growing up. But my son will always be 17. It’s like living your life in the past tense.”

Unlike Shaw’s story, most of those shared among victims’ families Saturday never made the evening news.

Instead, they remain torments shouldered by loved ones in private, all-too-familiar stories that make Justice for Murdered Children an organization with no shortage of potential members.

“To get to help other kids and other families who’ve gone through what my family has gone through,” Arviso said, describing her involvement with the group. “This has been my therapy.”

mike.anton@latimes.com