Wreaths Do More Than Decorate

Each day delivery trucks haul away another shipment of fresh Christmas wreaths from the “Pod Barn” in Chino, holiday greenery destined to decorate front doors and hearths across the country and around the world.

But the holiday season also signals an end to a yearlong project by some young men whom California courts have lodged at Boys Republic in an effort to divert them from lives of delinquency.

By Christmas the youths, aged 13 to 18, will have sent off more than 62,000 “Della Robbia” wreaths since shipments began around Thanksgiving. Shipping follows the final phase of production--adding perishable redwood, fresh Winesap apples and California lemons to the cones and pods already wired to the wreath’s plastic frame.

“We’re not in the wreath business,” says Don Irish, community care counselor at Boys Republic. “We’re in the business of working with troubled young men.”

The youths attend high school--part of the Chino School District--at Boys Republic, and gather academic “work experience” on the nonprofit wreath project and other programs, including farming. About 140 youths are at the facility at any given time, staying an average of nine months.

The Della Robbia wreaths--named for the 15th-Century Florentine family of ceramics makers whose tiles were decorated with garlands of fruits and flowers--raise about one-third of Boys Republic’s annual operating budget. The farm and other self-help operations bring the youths’ contribution to more than half, Irish said. Donations and stipends paid by counties whose probation departments assign youths to Boys Republic account for the rest of the budget.

Work on this year’s wreaths began last January, when the youths began making weekly trips about the Southland, gathering cones from lodge-pole pines at Big Bear, flowering eucalyptus buds from Ventura County and sacks of seed pods from the high desert. The natural decorations are drilled, then wired to green plastic frames in the wreath factory, known as the Pod Barn. The final work--the perishable phase--is executed late in the year by skilled women who live adjacent to Boys Republic, Irish said.

The wreaths--sprayed with clear lacquer--last as long as the fresh fruit holds out. This can be up to several months in a cool climate if the wreaths are hung outdoors and sheltered from the sun; they perish sooner if hung indoors and subjected to forced-air heat.

This year the wreaths have been treated with a chemical spray to enhance their longevity. The spray is a form of orthophenylphenol concocted by volunteer John Bice, vice president for research and development at Brogdex Co. in nearby Pomona. Brogdex makes products to extend the market life of fresh produce.

It is the 63rd wreath season for Boys Republic, which was founded by Pasadena philanthropist Margaret Fowler in 1907 as a shelter for homeless youths. On a trip to Italy in 1922, she got the idea of producing fresh wreaths at Boys Republic from specimens of the terra cotta tile she saw in Florence, Irish said.

The wreaths come in two diameters--20 inches and 30 inches--priced at about $25 and $40, plus tax and shipping. They are sold at Boys Republic in Chino and two other Southland locations, but most are sold through mail order or by contacting Boys Republic.