Local News in Brief : 500 Blankets Distributed to Valley’s Homeless in December

The Valley Mayors’ Fund for the Homeless distributed at least 500 blankets and 58 sleeping bags to homeless people during December, Marsha Hunt, president of the organization, said Thursday.

In addition, $6,062 in donations came in during the monthlong drive, Hunt said. She said about $1,000 was used to purchase 144 blankets and to set up an information telephone number. About $5,000 was added to the organization’s shelter fund, Hunt said.

“So far as we know, this sort of effort was a first for the Valley,” Hunt, honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, wrote in a letter to volunteers who helped with the blanket drive. “It was so improvised and complex a program that it may prove impossible ever to give an exact count of the blankets given and received.”

She said more than 600 blankets were donated or bought and that workers in the six parks, which served as distribution points, kept several on hand until the end of the year. Any blankets left over were to given to several Valley agencies sought out by the poor and homeless.

Hunt said only a fraction of the Valley’s homeless were reached during the drive.

“The most difficult challenge was informing the homeless--those drifting, scattered, isolated people with no phones, radios, TVs or newspapers,” she said.