Orange : Toy Drive Launched for Abused Children

Doctors in hospital emergency rooms often come across children who have been abused, sexually molested or abandoned. Some of those patients go from the hospitals to Orangewood, a temporary home for Orange County’s abused children.

This season, the Society of Orange County Emergency Physicians is collecting new clothing, toys, musical instruments and grooming and personal items for the more than 100 children at Orangewood.

Items collected at emergency rooms throughout the county will be given to the children at a Christmas party Thursday, said Molly Fields, an organizer of the drive.

Last year, the drive was so successful that about 200 items were left over, Fields said. Some were used as birthday presents and others, especially clothing, went to children who arrived “with only the clothes they were wearing,” said Fields, whose husband is a doctor at Saddleback Community Hospital.

Orangewood Director Bill Steiner said the children range in age from 3 days to 18 years old.

“We were so pleased last year that the doctors invested their time and energy to do this for us,” Steiner said.

The emergency-room physicians society also is accepting cash donations, which will be turned over to the Assn. of Foster Parents of Orange County, Fields said.