SANTA ANA : Free Trees for Kids Who Hang In There

Ernest Gomez anxiously counted Christmas trees Tuesday morning, worried that the truckloads in the local school district’s parking lot would come up a few short of the needed 230.

“We can’t let these kids down,” Gomez, the district’s director of child welfare, mused as workers unpiled the stacks of cord-tied plantation firs. The count came up complete, however, and Santa Ana officials gratefully prepared for the rewarding part of their task: doling out the trees to needy elementary school students who achieved near-perfect attendance records this year.

The trees, which were donated by the J.M. Peters Co., will be handed out during school today to 230 children at 28 Santa Ana schools. They are part of the district’s effort to reward students who consistently make it to school. District officials also tried to single out particularly needy children, where families might not otherwise be able to afford a Christmas tree.

“We really have been trying to come up with ways to congratulate kids for exceptional attendance records,” said Gomez, who has been in his post since July 1. “You can have medallions, you can have certificates or ribbons, but we wanted something that would involve the whole family.”

Christmas trees seemed the ideal solution, he said. They go home with the student and form a centerpiece for families throughout the holidays, reminding them of their youngsters’ feats. To qualify for the trees, students must have logged attendance records of better than 90%, Gomez said.

But the district had no money to buy hundreds of trees at about $20 each. So Gomez contacted J.M. Peters, a Newport Beach development company which in 1987 built a small housing project in Santa Ana.

“It’s the first time that a district had ever approached us with something like this,” said Brian Theriot, a spokesman for the firm.