Volunteers Bring Cheer of Season to Needy : Holiday: Santa gets help from Arleta agency that shares Yuletide joys with Valley families, offering food and gifts.

Throughout the Valley this weekend, people are giving their time, their resources and their goodwill to neighbors who otherwise wouldn’t have a very merry holiday.

At El Proyecto del Barrio in Arleta, 70 agency staff members arrived at dawn Saturday and formed a human assembly line that packaged donated food and household items to a clientele in desperate need of both.

“A lot of times these people go without a Christmas,” said Mary Hernandez.

“This is a time where we get together to distribute a Christmas for those who could not have one the way others do.”

From items donated by Navidad en el Barrio, another nonprofit group, they packed boxes of chicken, cheese, canned goods, tortillas and fruit.

And from toiletries donated by Santa Barbara’s Direct Relief International, the assembly-line workers made up separate boxes of items other people take for granted, such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes.

To present the right atmosphere when their clients came to pick up their holiday packs, they also had Santa Claus poised and ready with chocolates and balloons for the children.

Gladys Nazaryian, a Van Nuys mother of four, was among those who came with her children when she went to pick up her Santa Packs.

“Helping each other is part of Christmas,” Nazaryian said. “We don’t have nothing; we would have had nothing to eat, and my children would have been so sad. Now we have a big chicken, tortillas, rice, sodas, beans.”

As a result, she said, Christmas “will be so nice.”

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In Warner Center in Woodland Hills, 275 needy children from the Los Angeles area attended a holiday party sponsored by Healthnet, where they rode an electric train, watched puppet and magic shows and designed holiday cards and tree ornaments.

Each child also got two presents at the second annual party--one just-for-fun toy and one educational present.

In the northeast Valley, children from low-income apartment complexes were bused to the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center in Lake View Terrace for an event sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar).

Santa made it to that party, too, to hand out gifts after lunch and a horse show.

And at the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter in North Hollywood today, 300 homeless children will still get a chance to meet Santa at an event sponsored by Continental Coin & Jewelry in Van Nuys.

This party has a cold twist: snow.

In addition to their other gifts and treats, each child will receive a pair of mittens to better enjoy the 13 tons of snow that will be machine-generated for their party.

“Christmas is for children,” said spokeswoman Lynn Feldman. “That’s what it’s all about, bringing happiness to these little kids.”