ORANGE : Disabled Workers’ Tree Farm Raided

The Grinch tried to steal Christmas from the Daybreak Tree Farm and Nursery this week.

Employees of the nursery, a nonprofit business that employs and trains the handicapped, had worked all year potting plants and tending trees to prepare for Christmas, their busiest season.

Then on Monday night, burglars sliced through a chain-link fence, chopped down Christmas trees and stole $4,000 worth of wreaths, ornaments and potted plants from the farm at 1550 N. Glassell St.

The profits from the plants were to benefit the nursery’s handicapped employment program. Hoping to save part of the season, the nursery immediately ordered more plants from its supplier, Santiago Greenhouses in Orange.

But Santiago Greenhouses ended up playing Santa Claus, replacing the nursery’s losses for free.

“We couldn’t believe it. We were in tears,” nursery director Mary Lou Bayle said. “They turned a very bad day into a very good day.”

Santiago Greenhouses donated Daybreak’s order, threw in an additional 150 plants and later offered more poinsettias.

Dave Tursini, manager of Santiago Greenhouses, said owner Mark Stansbury made the donation without thinking twice.

“It’s not anything that extraordinary,” Tursini said. “It’s just helping people who are trying to help themselves.”

The Daybreak Tree Farm and Nursery has trees on 2 acres in north Orange. The farm, a division of the nonprofit Speech & Language Development Center in Buena Park, offers job training to the mentally, physically and emotionally handicapped.

The goal of the Daybreak program is to help participants learn to be financially independent, said Dede Ginter, spokeswoman for the Speech & Language Development Center.

This week, they learned a tougher lesson.

“They learned a lesson about the real world and that there are rotten people who cut down Christmas trees,” Ginter said.

But the lesson had another moral, said Tursini.

“It’s a sign of the times and it’s sad,” he said. “There’s really not much you can do--but you can try to help a little bit.”