He Hopes to Have the Homeless Covered--With 50,000 Blankets

Raymond C. Fico, 68, of Anaheim, likes to discuss his roses and the nifty way he protects them: He plants garlic among them and says he never has to use a pesticide.

But these days, Fico would rather talk about blankets--50,000 of them, as a matter of fact.

That’s his goal this year. Last year, he gathered and distributed 10,000 blankets, handing them out to anyone who needed them, no questions asked.

“Last year, I got a van and, with my stepson and five gang members, drove around the streets in Los Angeles (County) and Orange County during the cold nights and gave them to people sleeping in cardboard boxes, parks and on sidewalks,” said Fico, an appliance store owner. “My God, they were cold, and it was only two weeks before Christmas.”

Fico now is getting help from organizations such as Humana Hospital of Huntington Beach, which is holding a “blanket drive” to provide clean, usable and warm covers.

It all started three years ago, when Fico told his family not to buy him Christmas presents but to use the money to help him buy some blankets. He added his own money to buy 250 blankets at $5.95 each “because I could see how badly people needed them to keep warm.”

He expects that it will take about $100,000 to realize his goal this year.

His latest move is to buy what he calls “space” blankets, a silver-coated cover that can withstand water and dirt and provide more warmth than a regular blanket. “People can just fold them up and carry them away,” said Fico, who calls his organization “Covering Wings.”

He provides a half-hour talk and slide show to organizations interested in donating money or blankets. His telephone number is (714) 998-0264. “I sure wish they would call me,” he said.

Last year, the money he raised through fraternal organizations, churches and other sponsors enabled him to buy and give away 10,000 blankets. “But that was a miracle,” he said. “I need another miracle this year to buy 50,000 blankets.”

It may have been his own miracle during World War II that has finally prompted his blanket project. “I was wounded during the war and was in a coma for six weeks,” said Fico. “They gave me up for dead, but I asked the Lord to give me another chance--and he did.

“And that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now.”

The Apple Dumpling Gang. Who could go wrong with a name like that.

And it appears the apple dumplings they bake in early October are knockouts. The 1,250 they make are sold out two weeks before they’re even baked.

“We sell our quota very easily,” said Joyce A. Harvey, one of this year’s co-chairmen of the 65-member gang that bakes the tasty dessert. They all belong to the United Methodist Church Women of St. Andrews by the Sea United Methodist Church in San Clemente.

Many of the women work all week on the dumplings. “But we have a good time together,” said Harvey. Three men help.

Harvey said the apple dumplings are scooped up quickly at $1.50 each, which nets a $1,500 profit for the church.

“People buy them in large quantities and freeze them,” she said. “They not only taste great, but they smell wonderful, just like fresh apple pie baking.”

But she warns: “They are fattening.”

This year’s start of the school Horseplay Award grudgingly goes to some strong youths who carried a dead 400-pound, eight-foot-long blue shark over a six-foot-high wall at Laguna Beach High School and plopped it into the swimming pool.

The shark, said Laguna Beach animal control officer Joy Lingenfelter, probably was found on the beach.

“It had to take a bunch of very strong students to get it over the wall,” she said, noting that it took three people to get it out of the pool.

“This is a strange kind of job,” she said, unabashedly.

Dorothy L. McMillan, 55, of Santa Ana has this thing for horror. For instance, her first published book after 45 years of writing, is called “Blackbird.” It’s a psychological horror story about a female mass murderer.

A second book, called “Soul-Crossed,” is about a woman who wakes up in another woman’s body and the other woman wants it back. Now, McMillan is working on a new novel that deals with demonic possession.

It’s quite a change from her early writing. She wrote an unpublished book at age 8 about horses.

Acknowledgments--Jo Caines, 57, of the city of Orange, community worker and KOCE-TV executive, named a Woman of Achievement by Women For, a national group promoting the advancement of women in human rights, education and world peace. Nine women received the award presented in Los Angeles. She was the only winner from Orange County.