S.D. Events to Raise Funds for the Starving in Africa

Richard Walden, arguing that America’s excess is the best source of aid for the world’s starving people, has gotten oil companies to donate airplane fuel and hospitals to part with medical supplies.

His next project is rounding up oil-drilling equipment in Texas to drill water wells in Ethiopian villages.

Walden is director of Operation California, a small relief organization that works with such groups as CARE and USA for Africa aiding people from Cambodia to Poland.

On Sunday, the Beverly Hills-based group is turning its fund-raising attentions to San Diego. The proceeds from a day of events, including a Walk for Hunger and a benefit bay cruise, followed by an evening jazz concert with actor Ed Asner as emcee, will pay for an Operation California airlift to Africa.

Walden said he expects the event to be modest on the fund-raising scale. “San Diego is quite wealthy but quite conservative,” he said. “It’s a hard place to raise money for relief aid. There’s a preoccupation here with domestic issues.”

But about $40,000 to $50,000 has been raised in San Diego so far, money that Operation California will spend on medical supplies for some of the estimated 9 million Ethiopians on the brink of starvation.

Operation California was founded in 1979 by Walden, then a public interest lawyer in Beverly Hills. Through donations of medical supplies, tents and hospital equipment the organization has aided the so-called Boat People of Southeast Asia, victims of the wars in Nicaragua and Lebanon, and starving Africans. Since November, Operation California has raised $500,000 in cash and $3 million in donated goods, according to Walden.

Operation California does not deliver bulk foods overseas “so we don’t have the problems with diversion that larger relief agencies have.”

Walden said, “We keep it simple. We try not to look like one of those slick organizations with 800 numbers.

“We’re satisfied we’ve had an impact. You try to scale down your expectations and make a small dent. You know you’re not going to curb starvation.”

Operation California is hoping to raise $100,000 from Sunday’s events--about the cost of sending a planeload of supplies to Ethiopia. The five-mile Walk for Hunger, starting at 7:45 a.m. at Marina Village, has a registration fee of $10.

Ten thousand tickets to the Padres-Pittsburgh Pirates game, worth $3.50 each, have been donated to the organization. And a reception and cruise aboard the Invader, followed by the jazz concert at the Radisson Hotel, will raise $90 per person.