Children Share in the Holiday Spirit by Helping Needy

They may be looking forward to opening their own gifts on Christmas morning, but South Bay schoolchildren have been doing their part to make sure others will have something to enjoy during the holidays.

Students have gathered everything from pennies and canned goods to toys and frozen turkeys during dozens of charitable drives.

Can drives, which encourage students to go door-to-door collecting canned foods from their neighbors, have become a popular South Bay school tradition. Each year a class of students competes to beat the school record, which usually has been set at 3,000 or 4,000 cans.

At Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, where enrollment has been dwindling for more than 10 years, students have begun to build their can collection numbers back to the levels achieved by far larger classes.

This year, Mira Costa’s “Operation Happiness” gathered more than 15,000 cans of food for the Salvation Army, said Herb Hinsche, co-director for activities at the school. The campus record, set in the 1970s, “was in the high teens,” Hinsche said.

“It’s the true feeling of Christmas, being able to help others,” Hinsche said. “It’s become a real tradition here.”

Mira Costa students also “adopt” 20 needy families each year, buying food, toys, clothing and Christmas decorations to brighten the holidays of people who they know only by their first names.

Teacher Amelia Ramirez at Redondo Union High School helped her students create a happy holiday for a Hawthorne family with three children, ages 5, 11 and 12. The father lost his job and the mother has gone back to school, hoping that the education will help her get a good job.

“They can pay rent, but it’s hard for them to find enough food,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said her class has been helping families for five years, working with Wesley Bush, president of the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce and a volunteer at the El Segundo Salvation Army. Bush locates a family for Ramirez and delivers the items provided by the students.

Ramirez tries to make a lesson of the experience.

“I’m not just asking the students to help the poor, but I give a lesson on what makes poverty in our country and the Los Angeles area,” she said. The class reads literature that deals with poverty and isolation, with “how society isolates people, how literary characters help each other bring meaning into their lives.”

Students at South High School in Torrance dug into the pockets of their jeans for their one-day Pennies for People program, in which everyone was asked to donate their loose change on Dec. 8.

Nancy Chung, 17, who coordinated the program, said her schoolmates surprised her by donating nearly $200 in $1 and $5 bills with their pennies.

The loose change, which activities adviser Jerry McIlvaine said fills about two-thirds of a cubic-foot box, will be counted by a bank machine. The bank will issue a check, which students will send to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“I just couldn’t believe how much people would do,” Chung said. “When I started counting the bills and saw all the money, I was just really ecstatic. I do a lot of school activities that are just for our school, but it’s good to be able to do things for other people as well.”

At Palos Verdes High School, where 1,300 students collected 5,000 cans of food, several programs help brighten the holidays for the elderly, handicapped students and needy families.

Two school organizations donated $800 each to buy frozen turkeys and toys for residents of the Harbor Hills Housing Project.

Student body Secretary Toni Feste said students also hosted a lunch for senior citizens, gathered toys for children at the Toberman Settlement House in San Pedro and presented a Christmas program for handicapped students from a special education center in San Pedro.

“It’s not a hard thing to do and, if we didn’t do it, what kind of school would we be?” Feste said. “It’s enjoyable. It’s very gratifying. And it’s very necessary in the South Bay, contrary to popular belief.”

At Rolling Hills Country Day School, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Rolling Hills Estates, the 371 students helped the homeless by bringing in dollar bills, which were pinned on long red ribbons.

Last week, the ribbons--bearing more than $1,000--were rolled out on the school’s playing field, school director Evelyn Dawn said. The money will be given to Help the Homeless Help Themselves, a Palos Verdes Peninsula organization that supports shelters and helps homeless families rent apartments.

Teachers have talked to students about the homeless situation and the value of giving. The students were asked to give money they had earned doing chores and helping out around the house.

The school’s students always do a Christmas charity project, Dawn said. In the past, they have donated money for playground equipment at a shelter, gathered canned goods and collected toys.

“This is really great. We don’t know how many people out there don’t have all the things we have ourselves,” said Amy Stroock, 12, a seventh-grader who is student body vice president.

Eric Fleming, 9, a fourth-grader, contributed $50 he got for his birthday. He said he asked his friends to give him money for his birthday. Eric gave $30 of his own money, which he earned by taking care of his neighbor’s dog and cats and getting the mail and newspapers for them when they are away from home. “They go on vacation a lot,” he said.

So far, the largest amount of money in any class--$131--has come from the kindergarten class of teacher Dolores Fleming, who is Eric’s mother.

“The whole thrust is to show they understand there are others who are in need,” she said. “They have the capacity to help.”

Fleming said she believes that “it is very important for children at a very early age to learn we can help by being kind, by giving of ourselves. If we want compassion for ourselves, we must be compassionate toward others.”