Donors to Homeless Blanketing County

Last month, Raymond C. Fico asked the public to help with his campaign to distribute blankets and clothes to the homeless. This month, the humanitarian known as Blanket Man got his answer--everything’s covered.

“We’ve gotten probably 50 calls this morning, the phone’s been ringing off the hook this afternoon,” the 74-year-old Fico said last week. “It’s just what we needed: a shot in the arm.”

Fico said an article about his organization in The Times on Jan. 31 spurred a flurry of donations, volunteers and well-wishers, all of which will help his nonprofit Covering Wings Inc. step up its efforts.

By Friday afternoon, a steady stream of letters with donations enclosed had piled up on Fico’s desk, and well-wishers were visiting his Huntington Beach appliance store with kind words and financial help. In addition, an area school is considering embracing Fico’s charity as a fund-raising project.

“The notes that come through with the donations are just wonderful, too, just to hear how much people care and want to share,” Fico said Friday.

The retired Anaheim Hills minister’s efforts to keep Orange County’s homeless warm and dry had taken a back seat to his earthquake relief efforts in Los Angeles County.

There, he and a squad of volunteers handed out 14,000 of his shiny, silver survival blankets in areas where the temblors left residents living in tent cities or without shelter.

But that charity work had stripped his supplies of blankets, which he had planned to use to help the homeless in Orange County.

The rush of support will allow Fico to step up his Orange County work. Since he was touched and inspired in 1985 by a Christmastime news report featuring huddled, shivering homeless people, Fico has handed out more than half a million cloth and survival blankets and thousands of garments.

For more information about Covering Wings or to volunteer money, clothes or time, call Fico at (714) 968-3358.