County Puts Its Heart Into Raising Funds

They are Ventura County’s schoolchildren and teachers, Harley riders and churchgoers. They are firefighters, film enthusiasts and suburban real estate agents.

Some are professional fund-raisers, while others are feeling the pull of social activism for the first time. Most don’t know any of the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks. But from 3,000 miles away, like so many other Americans, they couldn’t sit around feeling helpless. So they collected pennies, organized charity rides, created corporate matching programs and opened their checkbooks.

In the week and a half since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, residents have given $325,000 to the American Red Cross of Ventura County--six times as much asthe chapter usually collects for disaster relief in a year. The Fillmore-Volunteer Fire Department raised $25,000--an average of $2 from every resident of the small city--for spouses and children of their East Coast brethren who died trying to save others.

Thousands of dollars more are expected to flow countywide during a weekend that will include a telethon, radio station drives, car washes and church events from Ojai to Simi Valley.

“We’ve heard more times than we can count, ‘I just wanted to do something to help,’ ” said Chris Grigg of the local Red Cross chapter. “We have a group of children who brought in $2,400 from their lemonade stand. We have businesses that are bringing in $5,000, $10,000, $25,000. The outpouring has been so amazing.”

At Somis Elementary School, 32 fifth-graders spent the week threading red, white and blue beads onto gold safety pins in American flag patterns. By Friday morning, they had sold 220 pins and were making more. Each goes for $3.

The project was no small sacrifice. To free up their days, the children agreed to do their daily classwork at night in addition to their regular homework.

“I told them, ‘When you have grandchildren, this day of Sept. 11 will be remembered in history, and you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren what you did,’ ” said teacher Shirley Otero, choking up as she talked about the experience. “Little hands, big hearts.”

Collin Sasse, 8, of Thousand Oaks, understood just enough about the attacks to know that other children’s parents and grandparents had been killed.

“He’d been wanting to do something,” said his mother, Kathi. “He walks around singing ‘America the Beautiful’ and every time he sees a flag he stops and says the pledge [of allegiance]. It’s a riot, because a lot of places have a lot of flags and he’ll sit there and say the pledge over and over.”

Last weekend, the third-grader decided to turn the lemonade stand he ran all summer outside his home into a fund-raising center. He took in $10, one nickel at a time. His parents kicked in matching funds for each family member, bringing the family’s contribution to $50.

Most schools report a student-driven effort: collecting pennies, contributing lunch and baby-sitting money and writing letters and sending teddy bears to children who lost parents are among the most popular.

Donations were collected through the Ojai Film Festival and Simi Valley Days. Area chambers of commerce, shopping malls, restaurants, corporations and real estate firms have chipped in. Local benefit concerts were held.

The county chapter of the Harley Owners’ Group raised $5,000, largely from a flag run with 125 riders strapping flags to their motorcycles and riding from Camarillo to Ventura.

“It was so great--what a warm, patriotic feeling,” chapter director Tom Tipton said. “We have a lot of military people out here, so it hits close to home. There’s a lot of sorrow, but a readiness to do what’s necessary.”

Today, the Ventura County Professional Firefighters Assn. will set up booths in Camarillo, Simi Valley, Ojai, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark to raise money for the families of firefighters who died.

St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley plans to donate half of the proceeds from an upcoming church auction to families of fallen police and firefighters.

Next week, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors will consider allowing county government’s 7,500 employees to convert unused vacation time into cash donations for relief efforts.

Supervisor Judy Mikels said she proposed the idea after an employee tapped her on the shoulder at the county Government Center and suggested it.

“She said, ‘I really want to help,’ ” Mikels said. “She said, ‘I really don’t have any cash, but I feel like I can’t do enough.’ ”