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Follow <i> What </i> Star? : Bus Taking Skid Row Kids to Beverly Hills Christmas Party Gets Lost

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Kids who live along Los Angeles’ Skid Row worry every Christmas whether they will receive a visit from Santa Claus.

But Wednesday, Santa was the one worrying whether the Skid Row kids would visit him .

Seventy children from an after-school center for Skid Row youngsters were invited to a lavish Christmas party at a Beverly Hills mansion to meet Santa, hear Christmas carols sung by Beverly Hills pupils and receive bags of Christmas gifts.

But the inner-city children got lost and went to San Marino, instead.

Instead of a tour of the historic Virginia Robinson Estate a few blocks away from the Beverly Hills Hotel, youngsters toured parts of Alhambra, South Pasadena, Highland Park, Silver Lake and Hollywood when their bus took them to the party organizer’s house instead of the party site.

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The event had been planned for four months by the Friends of Robinson Gardens, a volunteer group that helps maintain the Elden Way estate willed to Los Angeles County by the late department store heiress.

The group had pressed estate gardener Reese O’Crotty into service to portray Santa for the party. O’Crotty was sweating from his rented suit and beard as the announced time for the party’s start came--and went.

Out in the street in front of the 78-year-old mansion where they had gathered to greet the downtown children, members of the Friends group were also sweating out the arrival of their guests.

Earlier, 20 young choral members from the nearby El Rodeo Elementary School had rolled up in a fleet of parents’ cars led by a Cadillac and a Mercedes-Benz. They now were inside the estate, milling around among the Friends’ holiday decorations and waiting to sing “Deck the Halls.”

Donna Wolff, a Hancock Park resident who heads the 150-member Friends group, glanced nervously at her watch. “Morgan Fairchild was here--we wanted the children to see a celebrity. But she had to leave. The singers are going to have to leave, too.”

The women’s hope rose briefly when a bus pulled into view. To their disappointment, it was a Hollywood Fantasy Tours bus loaded with tourists.

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After an hour, the women walked dejectedly inside and listened as the chorus serenaded them. One of the choral singers, seventh-grader Brett Joffe, 13, admitted, “We’re disappointed. We came here to sing to the children, not to sing to the ladies.”

The chorus had finished its medley of 10 tunes when suddenly Wolff spied the bus with the Skid Row children. She ran out with Friends founder Joan Selwyn of Beverly Hills to flag it down.

Explained driver Nicholas Rosa, “They gave us the wrong address. We were all over the place. We went to somebody’s house, but no one was there. I thought they might have meant the Huntington Library, so we went over there.”

It turned out that the San Marino address of Helen Lambros, a Friends leader who helped plan the Robinson Estate party, had been inadvertently printed on Rosa’s trip ticket.

The trek had been tiring, but it had been worth it, the Skid Row kids said.

“San Marino is pretty nice, but I like Beverly Hills better,” said Thomas Aquilera, 11.

Elizabeth Garcia, 12, agreed. “Beverly Hills has bigger houses. It’s richer.”

Inside the mansion, O’Crotty reglued his beard to his face and hurriedly hunted for his mislaid Santa’s hat. Members of the Beverly Hills school chorus quickly regrouped and, after pleading for permission from their teacher to stay longer, reprised their Christmas hits for the children.

Peter Flores, assistant director of the Para Los Ninos center for the Skid Row children, said it was exciting for the impoverished inner-city youngsters to experience two of Los Angeles’ wealthiest enclaves.

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“They live in the concrete of downtown L.A. Some of them live in rat-infested hotels and don’t even have beds to sleep on,” Flores said. He said their mood brightened when they saw the grass and trees in the affluent neighborhoods.

Wolff said that was her group’s goal. “We’re not showing off,” she said. “We want them to know there’s more to life than what they may know.”

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