‘Good Neighbors’ Offer Help and Favors to Victimized Family

Offers of help were extended Tuesday to a black family whose home was vandalized in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack.

A furniture dealer who specializes in restorations offered to restore the De Silva family’s dining room table after reading about how vandals caused an estimated $80,000 worth of damage to their home.

One resident offered the family tickets to see the Los Angeles Lakers play. Others expressed outrage at the ransacking and sympathy for the family.

Last week, vandals spray-painted racial slurs throughout the De Silva family’s $370,000 home. Before leaving, the vandals stopped up sinks and turned on faucets, flooding two stories.

“It’s a terrible trauma, but maybe it becomes less so if you know there’s someone out there who you don’t even know who cares about you,” said Susan Morris, an executive with an equipment leasing company in Irvine.

Morris, who talked with Delano De Silva, the owner of the house, by phone Tuesday, said the family does not appear to be in financial need. Still, Morris said she hopes that he will take her up on her offer for tickets to a Los Angeles Lakers game. Her family-run business holds three season tickets at the Forum in Inglewood, she said.

Other residents expressed sadness and outrage that hate crimes exist in Southern California.

“It just makes me sick,” said Vaughn Nybakken, 40, a San Clemente resident who works in computer sales in Irvine. “Not in California, where we’ve got people from all over the world. Gosh, this is absolutely outrageous.”

Robert Rasner, a 50-year-old father of five in Laguna Niguel, echoed similar sentiments. Rasner, the owner of Elijah Socum, a furniture store that specializes in restorations, has offered to restore the De Silvas’ oak dining table. Rasner said he, his wife and an out-of-town guest read of the vandalism at the breakfast table Tuesday morning.

“We have a visitor who said, ‘Gosh, we see a lot of this thing in Cleveland. I can’t believe it happens in Southern California,’ ” Rasner said. “I guess I felt I just had a responsibility to get this thing fixed . . . to pick up the phone and tell him there are good neighbors out there.”