Bill Arrison retired at age 41...

Bill Arrison retired at age 41 to found San Diego Helpers, a private charity for handicapped and underprivileged children. The 4-year-old charity gives Christmas toys to children, throws parties for children hospitalized on their birthday, sends kids to camp, donates a specially equipped van for the handicapped once a year and offers a $10,000 scholarship to a handicapped student. Arrison was interviewed at his Hillcrest office by Times staff writer G. Jeanette Avent and photographed by Vince Compagnone.

I’ve always been in business for myself. I moved here from Las Vegas where I owned a portable toilet company. I worked with contractors for the Air Force. But I like to work with kids. Kids are neat. They won’t steal from you unless they’re taught. They can be trusted. I also wanted to retire at 41, so I did.

In the beginning after I sold my business, I started out helping other charities. But I wanted to see more of the money I raised go toward charitable projects rather than staff salaries. We’ve built this place, San Diego Helpers, on $15 donations. We have only one person here full time and that’s me. I earn $200 a week and everybody else is part time. Also, we don’t take requests from people off the street. We accept proposals to help kids from other organizations such as the Barrio Youth Center. That way we don’t have to employ somebody to check people out.

The Christmas season is our biggest time. That’s when we do our best work. Kids don’t need clothes for Christmas. They need a gift. They need a toy. Starting in September, it takes us about 3 1/2 months of fund-raising to buy about $25,000 worth of toys.

We hope to have enough presents this year for about 1,200 kids. The Barrio Center alone in Barrio Logan accounts for about 750 children. The youth center gives the party and we bring the toys. I put in the first order a few weeks ago for 200 skateboards, 400 plush animals, 200 good-sized dolls and 200 assorted other toys. You can imagine 200 children with skateboards. They love it. Most of the kids who come from the Barrio Logan area couldn’t afford a skateboard on a bet.

People help us out a lot. They see we are doing good and they give us things at cost. Plus there are several organizations that do toy drives for us. We never know what we’ll be getting. One lady donates two to three handmade dolls a year. They measure about 3-feet tall and their faces are all fabric.

When we started, we also wanted to work with handicapped children. So each year we have a wheelchair basketball fund-raiser with the San Diego Chargers. We usually get about seven or eight Chargers out there. They just go out and play a regular basketball game in wheelchairs and the guys seem to enjoy it. They play the San Diego City Knights, a wheelchair basketball team of students who go to San Diego City College. The benefit allows us to purchase a specially equipped wheelchair van that we donate to a group such as the YMCA or San Diego School District or to a family that needs it. We get a lot of requests for handicapped equipment. The smallest thing we ever did was provide rubber tips for a walker. The largest thing we do is the van, which cost us about $21,000 last year.

We also help send children to camp. Last year, we helped send about 400 children to Boy Scouts camp, the YMCA camp, the Barrio Center’s day camp and some to a camp for the handicapped. It costs as much as $300 per week for a handicapped child to go to camp.

We started Birthday Wishes, our fourth project in July. Any children stuck in the hospital on their birthday, we want them to have a birthday party. This was brought up by one of our benefactors. He was in the hospital and saw how bad kids felt when they were in there on their birthday, and it really bothered him. He put up some funds and all we have to do is match it and we’ll get a donation from him every year. With a call from the hospital, we send a clown over to the hospital with three gifts and balloons. He sings “Happy Birthday” to them and then they get to open their gifts.

I enjoy what I do. I’m 49 now and I’m a happier 49 than most people are. I don’t feel like getting back into the rat race. I think people are too much into the dollar and not enough into their home life. I’m even getting married soon--to someone who can afford me. She’s a nurse I met at my church.