Stars Embrace ‘Mac’ Kids

For any child, the day would be a dream, a miracle. Stars--all those famous people from television and movies--right there, where you live. And clowns, and all the Taco Bell and Yoplait and pizza and cotton candy and Haagen-Dazs you can eat. And games. And a special concert by Run-D.M.C. where you and your friends get to show off that you know all the words. Mickey and Minnie and Donald. And games, like a circus, and a picnic and everybody winning, everybody getting prizes, everybody being special.

For any child, the day would be a dream, a miracle. For the kids at MacLaren Children’s Center, it was that and more.

Saturday was Celebrity Day at Mac-Laren, the county’s emergency shelter for victims of child abuse and neglect. These children are wards of the court, removed for their own safety from their parents’ or guardians’ homes, and placed at MacLaren in protective custody. The day was the seventh such wonder put together by United Friends of the Children (UFC), the group of some 40 volunteers who are the year-round support group for the children at “Mac,” as they call it.

UFC member Ruth Ackroyd briefed one busload of Friends and celebs as they rode to Mac following the breakfast at Friends president Stacey and Henry Winkler’s home. The Friends are a constant presence at Mac, she said, coming every month for “Friends Day,” and a chance to reach out, one on one, to the kids. For too many of the children, Mac had become a home, some of them staying months rather than days. It’s the “personal contact” that will make a difference this day, Ackroyd said, so, “if you don’t have a job to do, there is always a child who needs his hand held.”

Everyone had name tags. The children’s frequently had names much more exotic, more unique than those of the celebrities.

Nancy Daly, a founder of the UFC and now also a County Commissioner for Children’s Services, had an explanation for the “special names” given to children who now end up in such an unspecial situation.

“When these children are born, it’s the one ray of hope for that mother that things will be different,” Daly said. “And then, nothing is different after all.”

“Things look so much better, so much cheerier than last year,” actress Jill Eikenberry told her sister-in-law, Barb Tucker, as they entered one of the nurseries. Eikenberry was “looking for a little one” to take out to the petting zoo set up every year by the folks from the Department of Animal Regulation.

The cottages had indeed been transformed, with bright paint, hangings on the walls, quilts with cartoon characters taking a little away from the institutional air. A generous couple had donated hundreds of new beds. UFC members Penny Thomopoulos and Ingrid Hanzen worked with the American Society of Interior Designers on one of the nurseries, part of a seven-cottage refurbishing sponsored by the Friends.

Mac was built as a juvenile correction facility, so one of the major efforts of UFC has been to make it a warmer, less hostile environment. Efforts include the murals painted in the past several years on the high walls surrounding Mac, a project done by students from Cal Arts supervised by UFC member Joanne Agoglia.

The murals feature animals and fish and faces, wonderful faces of children. On one series of walls, large windows have been painted, with views of mountains and blue skies and places far, far away from Mac.

Charlie Haid lost no time. The “Hill Street Blues” cop went right to a cottage for younger kids and started chatting with a crowd of 2-year-olds. “Hey, habla Espanol?” he asked one young fellow. “It’s your day,” Haid told the child and picked him up and hugged him.

As she had last year, actress Susan Dey spent hours with toddlers, feeding them, hugging them, far away from the hustle of the day. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich was busy doing a professional job of holding infants. The UFC members were lavish in their praise of his cooperation in getting the stage and sound system set up for the concert.

At another cottage, a staff member was helping a couple of children put on their new Adidas tennis shoes, a gift of Angelo Anastasio of Adidas. He has a long and year-round commitment to Mac, the UFC members stress, stocking the “store” where for merit points (for making their beds, doing their homework), kids can get the latest style running shoes, head bands and shirts.

People who get involved with Mac keep coming back. Again this year, the pizza came from Tony at Palermo’s, the cookies from the Laguna Cookie Co., the brownies from Gai Klass. UFC members took Polaroid shots so that the kids could have concrete memories of their meetings with the stars--Minnie and Mickey seemed to be bigger draws than even Billy Crystal and Mel Gibson.

“L.A. Law’s” Harry Hamlin was waiting for his chance to sit in the “dunk tank” when a kid about 10-years-old ran by, thrilled that his carefully aimed baseball had popped a celebrity into the water.

Did he want to meet Hamlin, the star of “L.A. Law”? the boy was asked. He shook his head. “Hey,” Hamlin said, “I was in ‘Clash of the Titans.’ ”

The kid was thrilled.

Christopher Reeve must have signed a thousand autographs. Carl Weathers must have been mobbed 20 times. The arrival of Robin Williams set the kids crazy.

On hand were Apollonia (who spent the day making sure that a youngster who was on crutches got her autographs and met the stars), “La Bamba’s” Esai Morales, and Rob Lowe. Celebs were everywhere--Andrew Stevens, Carol Kane with a toddler holding her hand, Jeremy Miller of “Growing Pains,” Marlee Matlin, “MacGyver’s” Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Gross, a softball-playing Michael Tucker, Howie Mandel, Christopher Atkins and many members of the San Francisco 49ers, who came for the seventh year, this year paying for their own round-trip tickets.

“Oh, I love him,” one teen-ager squealed as she headed for a Billy Crystal autograph. Had she gotten any others? She reeled off a list, adding after each name, “I love him,” “I love her,” “I love him.”

At Mac on Saturday, there was a lot of love going around.