A Holiday ‘Thank You’ to Our Many Heroic Neighbors : Even in a very tough year for Los Angeles, acts of genuine courage and selfless giving shone through to inspire us all

The spirit of sharing hits a frenzy of goodwill during the holiday season. People in Southern California are coming together in many different ways and places to spread holiday cheer. Christians and non-Christians, ordinary folks and celebrities are working to build a renewed sense of community. It’s that time of year when the walls that too many of us have built around ourselves can come down a little.

Let’s face it. It’s been a difficult year in Southern California: a dismal economy, layoffs and the riots. Even most of our sports teams had miserable seasons. But amid this bad news there have been many, many unsung heroes working day in and day out to help others in Southern California. Some have made it their life’s work. Others devote their free hours to volunteer community service. Peculiar circumstances of life have thrown others into the unexpected role of good Samaritans. These local heroes, for that is what we consider them, all deserve our appreciation.

It would be impossible to recognize every one of the thousands who have made a difference, but The Times is spotlighting a few who capture the spirit of our heroes this holiday season--or for that matter any other season.

ALL-YEAR GIVING:

* “Sweet Alice” Harris founded Parents of Watts in 1979 to help ease tensions and violence between Latinos and African Americans in the area. Today she continues to play an important role in the community.

* Ron Linderman and Ruthy Leonard, two Episcopal lay people from, respectively, St. Edmund’s, San Marino, and St. Martin’s, Compton, just concluded a seven-month food relief project that distributed about 15 tons of free food in Compton.

* Alice Callaghan, an Episcopal priest and a former nun, has tirelessly worked on behalf of the tired, the downtrodden, the sick, the unlucky--the homeless.

* Patricia Ann Baltz has suffered nine debilitating strokes, which have put her in a wheelchair and impaired her sight but have not kept her from her fourth-grade students. Baltz, 43, teaches at Camino Grove Elementary School in Arcadia and was recently honored as the California Department of Education’s Teacher of the Year in recognition of her leadership in starting innovative programs.

* At Hobart Elementary School in Central Los Angeles, teacher Rafe Esquith is in his classroom by 6 a.m. preparing for his gifted fifth- and sixth-graders who enjoy Shakespearean plays, algebraic equations and classical music. He was recently recognized as the nation’s outstanding teacher of 1992, earning the Los Angeles Unified School District $10,000 and Hobart Elementary $2,500.

* For the past seven years, Mary McAnena has run a five-day-a-week food line in Orange’s W. O. Hart Park to feed the hungry and homeless. In recognition of community support for McAnena’s work to provide free meals to the hungry, the City Council has been working with her to find a new site.

* Sixto Perez captured the hearts of the public last summer when he said “no” to a drug dealer who offered the 12-year-old $100 to sell cocaine at his school, Los Robles Elementary in Hacienda Heights. Though Sixto often lived on his free school lunches and took odd jobs after school to help buy milk and tennis shoes for his younger brother, he firmly rejected the money to sell drugs. News of his action brought donations of food, money and clothes from across the country.

GIVING WHEN IT MATTERED: The acquittal of the police officers involved in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King set off riots last spring in Los Angeles that tested the human spirit no end. The healing has been a long, difficult process. It is not over. But good Samaritans before and after the riots are persevering to make a difference.

* Everyone has heard a lot about the four men accused of beating motorist Reginald Denny. What about the South-Central residents who saved Denny’s life? Titus Murphy and Terri Barnett saw the attack on television. “Somebody’s got to get that guy out of there,” they said to each other as they headed for the nearby intersection. Little did they realize that they would have to be the ones to do it. After Murphy, Barnett and passerby Lei Yuille got Denny to the hospital, they were told that had one more minute passed without their help Denny would have died.

* Gregory Alan Williams also heard of outbreak of violence from television; he wound up coming to the rescue of beating victim Takao Hirata, who was traveling in a Ford Bronco through the intersection of Florence and Normandie when news of the verdict broke.

* Jesse Oyervides, a young janitor from Boyle Heights, helped security officers protect the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse from angry protesters the night of the riots. He helped put out fires and warded off intruders with fire extinguishers.

* Cleaning up the city brought people together with their brooms and dustpans. Actor Edward James Olmos and hundreds of volunteers from throughout the city fanned out into damaged areas to sweep up broken glass and debris.

* Rebuild L.A., though subject to considerable criticism, has made dogged private efforts to encourage companies to help to revitalize South- Central Los Angeles.

* In the aftermath of the riots, Lourdes Z. Saab, executive director of the Hispanic Women’s Council, put together a relief program, with the aid of corporate grants, to distribute food, clothing and money for rent, mortgages and medical care to 100 mostly Spanish-speaking families.

* The Rev. Hyun Seung Yang helped organize the Korean American Food and Shelter Service to provide food, referral services for shelter and counseling to riot victims and others. The program serves as many as 1,000 families, including African Americans and Latinos.

SPECIAL SEASON FOR GIVING: The holiday season always highlights the needs of the poor and homeless. This year, the needs are even greater. Unnamed volunteers are spending hours now--as during other times of the the year--collecting, distributing and serving food. Other groups ranging from the U.S. Postal Service to the California Highway Patrol and to local businesses have staged massive collections of foods and toys.

* With all the operational demands brought this year by Operation Restore Hope, the mercy mission to famine-ravaged Somalia, Marines at the El Toro Marine Corps Station still have managed to carry out some good work of the season for people at home. They have served as the main collection point for Toys for Tots in Orange County, the national campaign orchestrated by Marine reservists each year. The program collects thousands of toys and helps get them to needy children at Christmas.

* Shirley Bebereia, an English-language development teacher at Century High School in Santa Ana, has had her students, some of them from poor families, distributing clothing, toys and household goods collected during the past year to some of the very poorest families in Santa Ana. The program, SAVVY, Santa Ana Volunteer Youth, enlists young people in serving the poorest of the poor in the barrios.

* One-hundred families in South-Central Los Angeles jointed together to decorate their homes. The 92nd Street Better Home and Improvement Club resurrected a 30-year neighborhood tradition of lighting their street with thousands of twinkling holiday lights along 92nd Street between Central Avenue and Avalon Boulevard.

* Rabbi Naftoli Estulin, director of Chabad Russian Immigrant Program and Synagogue, handed out Hanukkah gifts on Sunday to newly arrived Russians in West Hollywood.

* All 550 employees at Abex Aerospace in Oxnard learned last October that their factory is closing next year, but continued their Christmas tradition of collecting toys for disabled infants and toddlers.

This holiday season, with its tradition of goodwill toward all, helps remind us of the continuing efforts of these good people, whether volunteers, community activists or professionals who devote their careers to helping others in need. We want to take this day to thank them all for their devotion, care and selflessness.