Finding Friends Indeed : Two days after his wife, Lynne, learned she had cancer, Michael Jenkins lost his job. That’s when the neighborhood pulled together to help them out.

It’s been an exceptionally bad year for the Jenkins family.

For starters, in early May, Lynne Jenkins, 41, learned she had cancer of the colon, ovaries, uterus and lymph glands, which required an emergency hysterectomy and surgical removal of her colon. Two days later, Michael Jenkins, Lynne’s husband, lost his job.

Adding to their problems is the fact that there is some question about whether their health insurance will cover Lynne’s medical costs, which are more than $130,000 and mounting. The Jenkinses had bought a health insurance policy in mid-April that took effect May 1, two days before Lynne’s emergency surgery. But the insurance company is looking into whether Lynne’s cancer was a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered.

Things, it seemed, had reached an all-time nadir when they were unable to pay their $900 rent in June.

But instead of the eviction notice they expected, their apartment managers gave them a welcome hand: Jack and Corliss Magee rallied their Palms-area neighbors and local businesses for a benefit yard sale and fund-raiser last weekend on the 10000 block of Rose Avenue.

In addition to much-needed cash, the two-day yard sale yielded the free services of a headhunter who is trying to find Michael a job, several offers from people to baby-sit the Jenkinses’ 3-year-old son, Brandon, and offers to drive Lynne to the hospital for chemotherapy treatments at the City of Hope.

But perhaps the most enduring result of the event is a new neighborhood esprit de corps. Neighbors in the community, like many in big cities, have had little opportunity to get to know one another. Rallying to the aid of the Jenkinses gave some of them the small-town feeling often missing in Los Angeles.

“We approached this thing not only as a family in disaster but as a way to bring the community together,” said Jack Magee, 42.

Neighbors in the Jenkinses’ apartment building and others on Rose Avenue passed the hat among themselves initially, raising money for the Jenkinses’ rent and other immediate needs. The group then circulated leaflets inviting other Palms-area residents and businesses to donate time, money, merchandise or no-longer-needed items to the yard sale.

“Regardless of what people think of riot-torn L.A., people do this kind of thing,” said Michael Jenkins, an Idaho native. “I told my brother in Idaho, ‘Before you call people in L.A. cold-hearted, think again,’ ” he said as he stood amid a crowd of about 70 yard sale shoppers on Saturday.

There was the usual yard sale fare: abandoned exercise bikes and rowing machines, coffee makers, waffle makers, racks and racks of clothes that had seen better days, and kitsch, kitsch, kitsch. Organizers had help from all quarters. Tables, plywood and hangers were donated by area businesses, and children sold lemonade and chocolate chip cookies.

Some shoppers came looking for a good buy; others didn’t care what they bought as long as the proceeds were contributing to the Jenkinses’ well-being.

The cause had struck a chord with the neighbors. Some older women told stories while they shopped, about losing their daughters to cancer. “We must have heard 20 stories like that, of people losing young people to cancer.”

One such story came from Kenny Dahle, who sought Jack Magee out to find out more about the yard sale beneficiaries. “I lost my sister to colon cancer,” he told Magee. “So I know how it is. She was 39, and there was just nothing they could do. Hope she (Lynne Jenkins) comes through. I’ll find something to buy, a white elephant. Something.”

The effort was “a terrific success,” said Magee, although he would not discuss how much money was made because of fear that the Jenkinses could be disqualified for state assistance. After Michael lost his job at Priority Call Magagem, a Massachusetts-based company that puts on trade shows nationwide, the Jenkinses went on welfare and food stamps.

Magee said he hopes that the neighborhood will continue to come out in force and show compassion for worthy causes.

For at least one person, this effort was just what the doctor ordered.

“I feel healthier just knowing that people care,” said Lynne Jenkins, who took respite beneath the shade of a tree in front of Villa Rose apartments last Saturday. “I am overwhelmed,” she said. “This is my idea of what community is all about. But if I talk about it too much, I will start to cry.”