SANTA ANA : Southwest Center Plays Santa Claus

Bundled up against the cold, more than 1,400 children and their parents flocked to a massive food and toy giveaway Friday sponsored by the Southwest Community Center, a Santa-Ana based nonprofit group that helps feed and house the poor.

Veronica Castille, 16, and her 21-month-old daughter, Linda Stephanie, waited for almost four hours for a pair of new tennis shoes and a dozen pint-sized cartons of milk. She said that enduring the chilly breeze for four hours on the sidewalk was tough but worth the effort.

“Some things the budget can’t handle,” Castille said. “You come here and get food and gifts. It’s helpful. (Still) when I was here an hour and a half, I wanted to leave.”

Renee Maldonado, 29, brought her three children ages 30 months to 11 years old.

“We tried the Salvation Army,” but their food and gifts were already gone, she said. “We would not have been able to get the kids presents if it had not been for this.”

Wrapped in a blue-and-white blanket, 12-year-old Edward Pacheco said that his family came from Garden Grove for the event. Standing near the end of the line, which was about five people wide and 100 yards long, Pacheco wondered whether he would get the Nintendo game cartridge he wanted.

Although workers at the center would not guarantee that children would get what they asked for, they said there were more than enough presents to go around, and pointed to five-foot-high mounds of wrapped gifts inside.

Santa Claus, played by 48-year-old Bob Whiton of Newport Beach, arrived at 3 p.m. in a red 1957 Thunderbird and waved to the families in the line outside the center, located at 1601 W. 2nd Street, before heading inside to dispense gifts.

Parents waited behind the building as their children were led by volunteers from local elementary and junior high schools to their audience with Santa. Whiton wished the predominantly Latino visitors “Feliz Navidad. “ Although many of the infants had fallen asleep by the time they were carried in to see Santa, some of the youngsters were clearly excited.

Whiton’s wife, Marilyn, said that some children stared with “huge, big eyes.”

“We had one girl come in here four times to find out if he was the real Santa Claus,” she added.

The picnic was the highlight of a weeklong, adopt-a-family program to provide poor families with toys, food and gifts, said Connie Jones, the center’s director. About 500 families have received presents since Dec. 17.