Spreading a Little Warmth : Charity: Salvation Army and Encino B’nai B’rith combine efforts to distribute wool blankets to homeless.

As the first cool and misty nights of the season settled on the San Fernando Valley, Paul Munroe would have given just about anything for a blanket.

Not that he had anything to give. He’s been homeless for two years. So when a Salvation Army van pulled up to the North Hollywood Park and Recreation Center last Friday with a load of wool blankets, courtesy of the federal government, Munroe could barely contain his excitement.

“A blanket! That’s like giving somebody life!” he said, eyeing the stacks of boxes in the back of the van. “I can’t wait to get one.”

Munroe took the brand new blanket, still wrapped in plastic, and walked off with a big smile on his face. They had arrived just in time. “Man, I was freezing last night,” said the lanky Vietnam veteran. “There’s only so much of yourself you can cover with a jacket. And when you’re cold, you don’t sleep.”

The Salvation Army recently received a windfall of the white wool blankets from Encino B’nai B’rith, which had obtained them free of charge from the federal government. A volunteer community service organization that also distributes canned food, household goods and toys, B’nai B’rith has orchestrated the blanket giveaway in Los Angeles for the last three autumns.

“If we don’t get ‘em donated, it’s hard for us to give ‘em out,” said James Halverson, a captain with the Salvation Army. “Normally, they just come in a few at time--this has been a real blessing.”

Friday’s delivery of about 150 blankets to dozens of homeless people in two North Hollywood parks marked the last of 15,000 blankets funneled through Encino B’nai Brith over the last month to homeless and needy people all over Los Angeles.

Over at the B’nai B’rith warehouse in Chatsworth, members of social service organizations drove up in vans, trucks and ordinary cars to pick up the blankets by the armful.

Quincy St. Martin, of the First Church of Nazarene in Los Angeles, stood on the loading dock, heaving blanket after blanket into the church’s white van. The work struck a personal chord with him.

“They’re gonna be happy,” St. Martin said of the hundreds of homeless people he would distribute the blankets to. “I know. I been down-and-out. And it’s about that time of year when it’s time to get ready for winter.”

On another day, young males living at the Rancho San Antonio home for boys in Chatsworth loaded up blankets in the agency’s van.

“We need ‘em cause a lot of people don’t even have blankets and it’s getting cold now,” said 16-year-old Rudy Martinez, who has lived at the home for more than a year. “They’re gonna be of good use.”

David Kaye, chairman of Encino B’nai B’rith’s community services program, has overseen the unloading of six semis filled with blankets of the sort distributed by the government in the wake of natural disasters.