AIDS Foundation Brings Holiday Cheer : Support: More than 80 volunteers gather in Irvine to deliver gift baskets to county residents who have the disease or HIV.

Ric Severtson added another teddy bear to his collection Saturday and marked his eighth Christmas season living with AIDS.

“We always look forward to these,” Severtson said of the bear, which peeked out of a festive gift basket delivered to his house by two volunteers with the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County.

Severtson was one of 436 Orange County residents with AIDS or HIV who received gift baskets stuffed with white teddy bears, coffee mugs, candy, disposable cameras, candles, herbal tea and picture frames, all wrapped in bright red cellophane.

“Our clients know that people out there care, and that’s what the holiday’s all about,” said David Armendariz, 35, director of volunteers for the AIDS Services Foundation.

Some people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or HIV, which causes AIDS, are with family and friends. Others are alone during the holiday season. Some have not told their families or roommates about their illness and are emotionally isolated, Armendariz said.

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“The only company they may have is the group of us that’s going to come in and deliver the basket,” said volunteer Mario Mendoza, 30, of Garden Grove.

More than 3,000 people have contracted AIDS in Orange County and 1,760 have died. As the number of victims increases, so does the number of volunteers at the AIDS Services Foundation, Armendariz said.

This year so many volunteers called to help that “we had to turn people away,” said Lisa Kaplan, organizer of this year’s basket drive.

The foundation has delivered baskets since 1987, and volunteers started to solicit donations from local businesses for this year’s baskets in August.

Saturday morning, more than 80 volunteers assembled at the foundation’s Irvine office to pick up the baskets.

Armendariz told them to keep the identity of recipients confidential and to be prepared for people in varying states of health.

“There are people working 40 hours a week, who look good and you’d never know they had AIDS . . . and some may be bed-bound,” Armendariz told the volunteers.

One group of volunteers said it delivered baskets last year and now has its routine down.

“We make it a day,” said Markella Markouizos, 29, of Long Beach.

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Markouizos’ friend Janet Patterson, 33, calls the recipients on the car phone, while her other friend Jill LLoyd, 37, drives. “I keep the baskets from falling in the back,” Markouizos said.

Last year, they delivered a basket to a man who had been found to be HIV-positive for several years and practiced homeopathy, an alternative form of medicine.

“He was real healthy,” Markouizos said.

“He told us we have to eat better,” Patterson said. “So we went to Mother’s (restaurant) afterward and got some vegetable soup.”