Small Boy’s Simple Offering Leads to Big Effort for Fire Victims

Unlike most 5-year-old boys, Aaron Bechtel wanted to clean his room. This revelation, however, should be prefaced with a story:

A couple of weeks ago, while watching the one hour of television his parents allow him daily, Aaron saw the wildfires burning in the Altadena area, far to the west of his home in the Mojave Desert town of Apple Valley.

He was moved as he heard two children tell a reporter that their books and toys had been burned. That was when the brown-haired kindergartner turned to his mother, Pat, and asked her if he could send some toys and books to those youngsters in Altadena.

“He wanted to know if the kids (in Altadena) would live and how they would get to school,” Pat Bechtel recalled. “He asked if he could clean his room and send the toys to them. And he asked if his friends could help too.”

Taking her son’s concern to her heart, Bechtel went to Aaron’s school, Mojave Mesa Elementary, to echo his suggestion to administrators there. She also told her friend and neighbor, Kim Ridge. In turn, Ridge called local radio and TV stations, newspapers, businesses, stores and churches. Some radio stations aired public service announcements and KHIZ-TV in the desert interviewed Aaron.

Today, Mojave Mesa School is in the midst of a weeklong donation drive for victims of the Oct. 27 Altadena fire, which destroyed more than 100 homes in the foothills.

Teachers and students are bringing toys, books and clothing to class “by the bagsful,” along with canned food, blankets and baby supplies, Ridge said. The donations will be taken sometime early next week to Noyes Elementary School in Altadena aboard a truck whose use has been donated by a company that prefers to remain anonymous, she said.

The project has also drawn in Thrifty Stores, taxi companies and community groups that have promised to organize donations from employees, said Ridge, whose days lately have been spent engrossed in contacting businesses and other establishments in the Victor Valley region of San Bernardino County, whose residents consider Los Angeles County a different world--a place “down the hill.”

Though Ridge and Bechtel moved virtually nonstop on a sunny Monday this week--from student council meeting to interviews to phone calls and faxes--they repeatedly downplayed their efforts, pointing to Aaron as the inspiration for it all.

These women and the other Apple Valley residents, who live only a stone’s throw from the San Andreas Fault, know what it’s like to fear natural disasters and hope for community help.

“Nobody was doing anything for the fire victims from ‘up here,’ ” Bechtel said. “If we had a bad earthquake, we’d need their help. . . . Maybe they’ll be there for us.”

An only child with big, hazel eyes and typical mischievous energy on the playground, Aaron gets painfully shy around strangers. During an interview he pushed his fingertip against his lip and answered questions mostly with a simple “yes,” often looking at his mother. Bechtel explained to a reporter that her son was still at the age when he doesn’t like talking to girls.

On Wednesday morning, after days of media interviews and awards from his school and the local Optimists Club, Aaron refused to get out of the car to go to school, Ridge said.

“He asked his parents, ‘Who do I have to talk to today?’ ”

Jean Owens, coordinator of the Adopt-A-School program for the Pasadena Unified School District, of which Noyes School is a part, praised the efforts in Apple Valley.

“I was moved not only by the fact that (Bechtel’s) son was sensitive to the needs of children that he saw on TV, but that she was willing to pursue it,” she said.

Owens said this is the first time another school has adopted a Pasadena Unified school. Usually local businesses do it. She estimates that about 15 students were directly affected by the fire, not counting relatives and friends. Noyes School will be used as a station for the Apple Valley donations to be distributed to fire victims in need, Owens said.

When Noyes Principal Isaac Hammond first heard that someone in Apple Valley had wanted to help Altadena fire victims, he thought it was a charitable organization.

“When Jean Owens explained to me that it was a young student . . . I was quite impressed,” he said.

Hammond said he was also impressed because a community from a different part of California, and one that is not particularly affluent, was so willing to help.

Noyes and Mojave Mesa plan to continue being “sister schools,” the principal said, adding that someday the role of donating might be reversed.

In trying to explain her youngster’s philanthropic act, Bechtel recalled watching as a fire burned her own home when she was young. She thinks the stories she told Aaron about that time and about people helping out had sunk in.

So does Mojave Mesa Principal Robert H. Fore Jr.

“Children display what they see modeled,” he said, referring to Aaron’s parents and their history of volunteer work for school functions. “If the seed was not already sown in the family, it wouldn’t have emerged.

“It took a 5-year-old kid to say, ‘What can we do to help?’ ”