Spreading Cheer : Navidad en el Barrio Has Become Super Santa for the Needy

Maria Gonzalez-Lloyd is quite clear about where the holiday food programs for the destitute in Hawaiian Gardens would be without Navidad en el Barrio: “In a world of hurt.”

Gonzalez-Lloyd is the assistant city administrator in Hawaiian Gardens, one of Los Angeles County’s 10 poorest cities, with a per capita annual income of about $7,000. She also helps coordinate holiday food and toy programs for the needy--one of 40 social services served by Navidad en el Barrio, a 17-year-old nonprofit agency based in Montebello.

“We are all from the old neighborhoods, from the barrio,” said Willie Mendoza, who sits on the organization’s board of directors. “We went to competing high schools, some of us left the neighborhood for a while, but we are back.”

From Santa Barbara to the hand-to-mouth existence of Skid Row and to San Bernardino and Anaheim, Navidad en el Barrio has fed more Latino families during the holidays than any other organization in Southern California.

This year the agency distributed to social service agencies toys and more than 20 tons of food for about 20,000 families, said Ray Rosas, the organization’s executive director.

“We were getting 120 calls a day from people requesting food baskets,” said Rosas, looking over boxes and bags full of potatoes, rice, beans, cheese and other food in a Commerce warehouse. “It never ends.”

No sooner had he spoken than three women carrying infants came to the door carrying a worn scrap of newspaper with a description of Navidad’s program and the warehouse address.

Esther Duenes, 38, from East Los Angeles looked past Rosas at a five-foot-high row of boxed potatoes as she told him she had seven children and a husband who had not worked since his plant was shut down two weeks ago. She would like a Christmas basket, she said.

Rosas cringed. Navidad does not distribute food directly to residents. He explained that she must go to a social service agency and sign up to be eligible for a basket. She would be put on a waiting list and the food would go to the agency the next day. The agency would distribute the baskets. He handed her a piece of paper with a number on it and watched her as she left.

Duenes was late. Navidad could give only 500 Christmas baskets per agency, and agency lists were long. Duenes would be lucky if she received a basket. If not, Rosas said she could receive $5 and $10 gift certificates from Navidad to buy groceries.

“We never say we don’t have enough,” Rosas said. “We try to have something for everyone.”

Rosas, 41, was hired by the organization four months ago and since then has had his hands full fielding calls for help and planning the program’s future.

Old-timers, who listen warily to the aggressive Rosas and ambitious plans for expanding the organization, tell the story of a Christmas 17 years ago when a young man and his wife were seen knocking on doors in the old neighborhoods of East Los Angeles. Their plea for food was eventually heard by executives from KMEX-TV. Danny Villanueva, who was then president and general manager of KMEX-TV, met with several Montebello residents who came to his office looking for a way to help poor Latinos who were too uneducated, too frightened or simply too proud to ask.

“There was a great need in the Latino community,” said Alex Esquivel, one of the founders of Navidad en el Barrio. “We had to go to schools and clubs and businesses to ask for donations.”

Villanueva said he was concerned that Latinos were not helping each other. He said he foresaw Navidad en el Barrio becoming a tool to teach Latinos to volunteer. After 18 years and no end to Navidad’s growth in sight, he said it is the increased number of volunteers that makes him most proud.

“These people are one, maybe two generations away from the immigrants,” Villanueva said. “They are one or two generations away from the poverty they are trying to eradicate, and they, the poor, have learned to help those who are poorer. That is the spirit of Navidad. We cannot forget where we came from. We’ve got to put our hand down there again and pull up someone else.”

One year after Navidad was organized, KMEX-TV hosted its first telethon for the organization as a community relations project. When it was over, $5,500 had been pledged and a tradition begun.

Navidad en el Barrio became synonymous with KMEX-TV, whose staff supported the organization with equipment, facilities and contacts. The telethons, broadcast in early December, have grown into star-studded affairs with international entertainment and corporate sponsors. They are Navidad’s largest source of money. This year $437,000 was donated in pledges, Rosas said. Navidad still relies on the help of schools, clubs and businesses that came to the organization’s aid years ago, board members say.

“We’ve gotten so big because we are the only Mexican-American agency serving Mexican-American people,” Rosas said. But even that is changing, Rosas said. Today about 15% of the families they feed are black and Asian.

With the change in demographics and the overwhelming number of people who must be fed, Navidad en el Barrio must become an independent corporation, Rosas said. To do that, he said, the organization will need more money. Much of the donations Navidad receives are donations of services or equipment or bulk food items, not cash. Also, many pledges do not come through.

To that end, Navidad en el Barrio separated itself from KMEX-TV this year and its board of directors accepted the donation of an office in the city of Montebello.

“It has grown in quantum leaps,” Villanueva said. “It became an institution and it was time to wean it away from the station. It has now reached the level where it can fly on its own.”

The telethons will not end, however, Esquivel said. But the organization has hired Rosas and secretary Elisa Alvarez as its first paid employees. Rosas already has started planning for yearlong activities.

“I think it is time we get out of the barrio,” he said. “We must become a larger part of the community and not just put up our tents at Christmas.”

BACKGROUND Navidad en el Barrio began 17 years ago as an immediate response to needy Mexican-Americans in the East Los Angeles barrio. Sponsored by KMEX-TV and a few Latino community volunteers, the food program for needy Latinos has grown to where it now serves 40 social service agencies from its headquarters in Montebello. It recently hired its first paid staff of two.