Santa Ana : Needy Students Get Outpouring of Gifts

While the rest of the students in Room 25 at John F. Kennedy Elementary School eagerly tore the wrapping paper off of their donated presents, Veronica Vera, 9, sat quietly at her desk clutching her neatly wrapped gift.

The fourth-grader, who lives in the Minnie Street corridor, one of Santa Ana’s poorest neighborhoods, said that there were no presents for her at home and that she wanted to have something to unwrap on Christmas morning.

On Friday, Veronica and her classmates, most of whom are Mexican and Cambodian immigrants, were the recipients of an outpouring of generosity that came as the result of a letter sent by their teacher, Sheila Smith, to radio station KZLA-AM/FM.

Her letter was one of more than 1,000 entries submitted to the station’s annual Holiday Dreams contest, in which listeners nominate people who need help during the holidays.

Smith asked for a sweat shirt for each of her students, many of whom she said come to school on cold mornings without warm clothing. Her request was one of 12 winning wishes granted by the station, which delivered 35 sweat shirts to the school on Friday.

“Something in her heartfelt letter really struck us,” said Wendy Esensten, a programming assistant at KZLA. “We thought, if those children were cold, we should be able to help them.”

But the sweat shirts were only the beginning. Less than 30 minutes after her letter was read over the airwaves last week by disc jockey Ken Cooper, Smith received six calls at the school with offers of help. By the end of the week, more than 30 companies or individuals had asked what they could do.

One of the biggest offers came from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which donated $3,500 worth of toys. Other donations came from General Dynamics in Orange County, which contributed $750 worth of shoes and socks, and from United Yellow Pages in El Segundo, which gave each child in the class a wrapped toy.