Volunteers Make Spirits, Homes Brighter in O.C.

West Anaheim resident Lupe Guadan, 70, awoke on Saturday to the same to-do list of home repairs that she just could never get around to.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have the time or inclination. She didn’t have the money.

But today, Guadan has brand-new kitchen drawers, a new living room electrical outlet that doesn’t spark and new mauve carpeting for her second bedroom shared by her grandchildren.

Even her Garza Avenue yard was transformed.

“I’ve never had flowers before,” she said Saturday, looking out at dozens of complete strangers working in and around her home. “It’s going to be so bright and pretty.”

Guadan is one of 26 Orange County residents who benefited Saturday from the good work of “Christmas in April,” a nonprofit volunteer organization that transforms homes in need of repair.

Volunteers by the hundreds--like Santa’s elves--work furiously throughout the county one magical day of the year, the last Saturday of April. Homeowners blink and the work’s done.

Christmas in April was formed in 1972 with the good deeds of one homeowner helping another in Texas. Now there are some 220 chapters throughout the United States. The program has been operating in Orange County since 1991 and has repaired and rehabilitated more than 140 homes and offices of nonprofit agencies throughout the county.

Homeowners demonstrating financial need apply for the program. Household incomes range from $20,000 to $32,000 depending on city of residency and family size. The elderly and disabled are given priority.

After selections are made, each site’s needs are assessed and volunteers are divided up to tackle the job.

Organizers estimate that some 800 volunteers were on hand Saturday. Depending on work needed, they descended in groups of up to 50 for each site--including 10 nonprofit agency offices. Skilled and unskilled volunteers from more than 50 companies, including UPS, Bank of America and Boeing, pitched in.

Scotty Griffin, 31, an accountant with Southern California Edison, said karma motivated him to drive from San Bernardino to lend a hand.

“I’m in good financial shape right now,” he said. “But you never know. Maybe sometime I’ll need a program like this.”

Griffin laid carpet Saturday. Other volunteers painted, replaced light fixtures, rewired homes, tightened leaky faucets--even trimmed trees. Roofers had either worked in advance at some locations or were scheduled for later.

Organizers estimated the cost of repairs for each site between $8,000 to $14,000. They said the work had a market value of about $430,000. With donated time and materials, it all was free to the homeowners.

“This is going to give new life to these homes and to the neighborhood,” said Gloria V. Lopez, executive director of the Anaheim Independencia, a neighborhood resource center on Garza Avenue. Lopez referred four applicants to the program this year--part of the center’s hope to improve the neighborhood. “These houses would have been going down, down, down,” she said.

Other residential and business neighborhoods that benefited Saturday were in Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Stanton, Orange, Irvine, Tustin and Laguna Beach.

“Someone’s home is basic shelter,” said Sarah Shogren, volunteer spokeswoman for Christmas in April. “We can make [people’s] homes safer and more secure and make the disabled more independent. They can feel like they are retaining their dignity.”

Today, Salvador Becerra, 76, is enjoying his gift of a fresh coat of paint, repaired stairs and new windows and flooring. His South Hickory home in Santa Ana was in pretty bad shape, organizers said.

“Realistically, he just reached a point where the jobs just became bigger and bigger with time, and with his age he just wasn’t able to complete them,” said volunteer Daniel Hernandez, 30, of Irvine.

Lucy Robles is another Garza Avenue homeowner whose life will be more comfortable after volunteers Saturday built a wheelchair ramp for the 68-year-old leading from her bedroom to her backyard.

“Can you believe they can do this all in one day?” asked granddaughter Erika DeSantiago, 20, of Anaheim. Since a stroke paralyzed her last spring, Robles uses a wheelchair.

Today, she and her 12 grandchildren and great-grandchildren can enjoy new kitchen flooring, new tile in her bathroom and even a repaired furnace that was falling off the wall.

“My grandmother is so sentimental. I’m sure that after everybody leaves she’ll be crying,” DeSantiago said Saturday. At least one passerby was equally moved.

Frank Avila , 45, a neighbor on Garza Avenue, volunteered on the spot for next year’s crew.

“I’m in awe,” Avila, who owns a carpet-cleaning business, said to a pair of volunteers taking a break. “If you guys can do it for free, so can I.”