The Rescuer

Anaheim firefighter Richard Chavez’s job is to rescue people in need. But along with first aid, he often provides food, clothing, cash and the occasional stuffed bear.

“I’ve worked in the poorest neighborhoods, and there are a lot of people in this county who are not doing well,” said Chavez, who has been on the job for 25 years and insists he’s not alone among his colleagues.

“A lot of firefighters have the same feeling of needing to be a helper. We’re the ones who see [needy and abused children].”

Two months ago, Chavez came to the aid of a young mother who had been standing at a street corner when a car rolled into her 2-year-old daughter, crushing the child’s hand against a concrete pole.

“I bandaged the child up,” Chavez said. “Then I took them to the hospital. I could tell they were really poor. So I took another 10 minutes and met with the hospital social worker. I just said, ‘If there’s anything the family needs, any money or anything, call me and maybe I can help.’ ”

The mother declined any assistance, but Chavez made sure her little girl got a new teddy bear.

Chavez is especially interested in helping abused children.

“We can call him for anything; he never says no,” said Lorri Galloway, executive director of Eli Home Inc., an Orange-based nonprofit agency that has a shelter in Anaheim Hills for victims of domestic violence.

Last year, Galloway needed someone to help a woman fleeing a husband who had threatened her five children. Chavez arrived at the shelter at 6 a.m. with a moving truck and drove the family six hours to a safe place in Northern California.

“They [social workers] were going to put the children in foster homes if the family didn’t relocate,” he said.

Whether the home needs painting, play equipment or a Christmas tree, Chavez finds a way to provide it. When more hands are needed for a job, he mobilizes a troop of his fellow firefighters.

On a recent weekend, he visited Eli Home to touch up the paint and drywall and perform other light carpentry, part of a minor make-over that the shelter undergoes twice a year. The home was built to accommodate 22 people who stay an average of 45 days.

“Facilities for abused children shouldn’t look like an institution,” Chavez said.

When the shelter underwent a serious renovation two years ago, Chavez and 15 fellow firefighters spent about 10 days doing everything from installing drywall to laying tile. Six months ago, they bought and installed a new redwood jungle gym.

And to help the Eli Home and other organizations find volunteers, cash, donations or special favors, Chavez works his connections as president of the Anaheim Firefighters Assn. and vice president of the Orange County Central Labor Council, as well as friends he’s made on the Anaheim City Council and Anaheim Memorial Hospital.

Chavez’s reputation as a guy who can get things done has spread far beyond the Eli Home. When Ana Maria Garcia, an Anaheim mother of three, lost both legs to a bacterial infection, Chavez orchestrated the campaign to help her family.

As one of the first paramedics on the scene, he said, he was moved by their plight.

“It was the middle of the night and it was raining,” he recalled. “What struck me was the [living] conditions. She, her husband and her three kids were living in a garage converted into a makeshift apartment. They had almost no furniture--just a concrete floor and a small stove. They were in terrible shape.”

Chavez became friends with the family, especially the woman’s husband, Roberto Serrano. At the time, Serrano was out of work because of a shoulder injury.

“This guy didn’t have a friend in the world; I could see he needed help,” Chavez said.

Chavez put out a call among firefighters and throughout the community for assistance, and they began collecting shoes, clothing, toys and other items. Chavez helped establish the Anaheim Firefighters in Trust fund for Garcia and her family.

The family got enough cash donations to make a down payment on a modest house across the street from the garage where they used to live.

Garcia now can move around in an electric wheelchair, also bought with donations, and Serrano works for a landscaping company. Chavez recently took the couple’s two oldest sons, ages 9 and 6, to Knott’s Berry Farm.

Chavez has been busy helping in other ways, too. Two years ago, he and Eli Home’s Galloway instigated the Courage Under Fire Awards benefit for firefighters. Proceeds go to Eli Home and the Orange County Burn Assn.

He helps out residents of the Jeffrey-Lynne area in Anaheim through his involvement with Los Amigos, a local service agency. He’s chairman of the United Firefighters of Orange County’s Muscular Dystrophy Assn. committee, helping orchestrate fund-raisers and community events.

Last year, at the Fill the Boot fund-raiser for the MDA, he and other volunteers stood at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue collecting cash from motorists.

Many people wonder how Chavez, 43, finds time for everything. He’s been known to work at the firefighters association office until 3 a.m.

“I hit a point in life where community involvement and social issues are a priority. When that occurs, you make the time. I’ll move things around,” he said. “Everything I do is on an as-needed basis. So that when the kids at Jeffrey-Lynne need a Santa who speaks Spanish, I’ll get them one.”

Chavez was born in northwestern New Mexico in the tiny town of San Rafael (population 300). His father worked in a uranium mill and his mother was a homemaker. The family moved to Santa Ana in 1969, when Chavez was 14. His father became a union carpenter. At age 18, the son became a Santa Ana firefighter.

His first volunteer work started in 1976, when he mentored two boys for the Big Brothers/Little Sisters of Orange County for about 10 years. “Boys really look up to firefighters,” he said.

Chavez became president of the Anaheim Firefighters in 1993; that’s when he heard about Eli Home. His post has allowed him to become an advocate for the shelter, and his goal is to get enough support from firefighters and the community to build a second shelter.

“There are 30,000 cases of child abuse and neglect in Orange County, and 7,000 in Anaheim alone,” he said. “This is the only emergency shelter for abused children in Anaheim.”

Chavez and the firefighters seldom meet the children at Eli Home whom they help.

“Once the families are here, we don’t interfere. The children are scared, and having males come by they don’t know isn’t a real comfortable feeling,” he said.

But there are occasions when he can spend time with the families. He and the firefighters occasionally take the children places--to ballgames, swimming pools, amusement parks and, of course, fire stations.

A single father who lives in Orange, Chavez brings his own 8-year-old son, Ryan, to help out at the home and meet the children.

“It lets those children know they’re regular kids, and it lets my son know that too,” he said. “It takes that institutional feel away from them.”

It has had an effect on Ryan Chavez too, his father said.

“My son is very appreciative of what he has. It’s made him more compassionate. That’s probably my biggest reward.”

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To volunteer at the Eli Home Inc. or to make donations of toys, cash or clothing, call the headquarters in Orange at (714) 997-2410.

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