‘Perspective’ Is a Benefit in Helping the Needy

From students and housewives to successful professionals, hundreds of Los Angeles residents dedicated part of their Christmas Day to doling out free meals and toys for the poor.

“This gives me perspective,” Clint Hodges, a trial attorney who lives in Brentwood, said moments before children and adults descended on the Midnight Mission around noon for a lunch of turkey, yams and pumpkin pie.

Dressed in a white cap and apron, Hodges, 52, was one of about 100 volunteers who dished out food and bused tables at the Skid Row mission. In shelters, churches and jails throughout the city, volunteers took time from their holiday celebrations Monday to share goodwill and cheer with the down-and-out. Organizers in some places reported having to turn away volunteers.

Dr. Sandy Skates, a third-year resident at the Pacific Hospital of Long Beach who was volunteering at the Midnight Mission for the first time, said she is thankful for her “good life” and wants to share her fortune with others.

“I have food, a home, a car, family,” Skates, 30, said. “And one way to keep it is to be of service to other people. People talk about the joy and giving of the Christmas season. Well, that’s here.”

With Midnight Mission director Clancy Imislund serving as something of a maitre d’, the homeless and the poor filed in past a cafeteria-style counter to receive their food, then sat at tables with green and red paper place mats. Imislund predicted more than 3,000 meals would be served by day’s end.

Imislund said he had to turn away about 150 people who offered to work because the volunteers outnumbered the tasks he had for them.

At the Salvation Army in Van Nuys, Capt. John Purdell had for weeks received calls from people offering to help on Christmas Day. But, he said, you never know how many people will actually show up until the holiday comes.

To his relief, more than 50 volunteers had crowded into the San Fernando Corps Community Center on Victory Boulevard by the time it opened its doors at 8 a.m. Donning red and white elfin hats, the volunteers distributed 10,000 toys to “children who Santa Claus missed,” Purdell said.

“They come down because they know there are people in worse circumstances,” Purdell said of the good-deed-doers. “They want to reach out.”

For many of those who help, they are reminded that a simple turn in events might make the difference between ending up homeless and becoming successful. Hodges said there was a time in his youth he might have ended up on Skid Row, had he not been inspired to pull himself and his life together.

“You look in the eyes of these men (who come for meals), and you say ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” Hodges said. “Sometimes you see a little flicker, and sometimes you see dead eyes. I can identify with all of it. Then I go home to a family meal this afternoon, and I’m a better person for it.”