Girls League Gives Cheer to Buena Clinton : Charity: A Garden Grove High School social group brings gifts to the needy instead of simply contributing money.

The only sign of Christmas in the small apartment of Alejandro Salinas is a makeshift tree fashioned from construction paper and taped to a bookshelf. There would be no tree this year, no presents for the six children who call the one-bedroom apartment home.

“I don’t have very much money,” said Salinas, a 37-year-old carpet cleaner. “I don’t have money to buy presents. The kids asked for a Christmas tree, but I had to tell them maybe next year.”

On Monday, however, a little bit of Christmas came to the Salinas household, thanks to the efforts of the Garden Grove High School Girls League, a social organization that fanned out across the poor Buena Clinton neighborhood to bring gifts to the needy.

The league delivered wrapped toys and supermarket gift certificates to 10 families in the neighborhood, which has long had the reputation of Orange County’s worst slum.

“They’re so happy,” Salinas said, watching his children--all under 11 years old--shaking brightly colored gifts presented to them by 25 members of the girls league. “I’m surprised at this.”

The league chose to donate about $1,500 it collected for charitable causes to the Buena Clinton families. Instead of giving money to a charity, the students wanted to help needy families closer to home.

Among the gifts were blankets, dolls, window locks, Christmas hair-ribbons and toy cars. They shopped for the gifts last week.

For Kelly Blankenship, 17, a senior, it was better than donating cash.

“It’s fun to go shopping,” Blankenship said. “I have a little sister. I know what she likes. This is better than just giving them money.”

That meant wrapping about 100 presents, loading them into several vehicles and going from apartment to apartment. Often, the students crowded into a family’s apartment amid exchanges of “Merry Christmas” and “Feliz Navidad.”

“It’s the neediest neighborhood of Garden Grove,” said J.K. Smith, a business and social science teacher and adviser to the group. “It’s a real experience.”

Garden Grove Police Officers Jaime Joyce and Mark Elizando, who regularly patrol the neighborhood, chose the families after surveying many residents’ Christmas plans.

“I asked the families, ‘Are you getting anything for Christmas this year?’ ” Elizando said. “They said they didn’t think so, so I told them, ‘if I run across anyone, I’ll see if I can get you anything.”’

The three-square-block neighborhood is home to more than 5,000 people, most of them poor and more than 80% of them Latino. An average of seven people live in each apartment, and the crime rate is 400% above the city average.

Buena Clinton residents, some appearing overwhelmed by the group’s effort, thanked the students for their generosity. One mother hugged Smith, saying afterward that Christmas would now be a little better.

At other apartments only children were home, and they too were surprised.

Ana Yadira Sanchez, 11, was in her apartment with her 2-year-old sister, Donna, when the students came to the door.

“Whatever they give me is fine,” Ana said later, when asked what she wanted for Christmas.

Outside, Vice Principal Mike Miller gave out four bags of candy canes to children, who swarmed around his gift-filled pickup truck.

For some, like Irene Monterosa, receiving the gifts was bittersweet.

Monterosa thanked the girls for the presents, but she said she wasn’t looking forward to the holiday. Monterosa, fighting back tears, said she and her four children will spend Christmas away from her husband, who is going to visit parents in Mexico.

She is not sure, she added, when he will return.