Story on Poor Families Brings Outpouring of Holiday Giving

An outpouring of Christmastime generosity has brightened the holidays for some hard-luck Orange County families.

Four days ago, the Herreras were looking forward to an especially tough Christmas.

Carmen and Bulmaro Herrera, their eight children and Carmen’s 75-year-old grandmother rent a ramshackle, two-bedroom wooden bungalow in Placentia for $75 a month. There is no heat. Carmen, 37, recently lost her job and Bulmaro, 34, earns only $145 a week as a landscaping worker.

Aid and Presents

But people have come forward to provide the family with money, food, clothes and presents for the children after the Herreras were profiled in a Times story Sunday on how four poor Orange County families planned to spend Christmas.

By Christmas Eve, the family had received $500. A La Habra woman also called to offer two bicycles and clothes for the younger children. Others helped the family paint and fix up the apartment.

“Many people have given us so much. We’re a lot less sad this Christmas. We’re very thankful,” Carmen Herrera said in Spanish.

She planned to cook tamales and enjoy watching her children open the scores of presents under the tree.

Al Motil, a spokesman for St. Anthony’s Church in Anaheim, said he had received many calls from people offering to help the Herrera family and Patsy Watts, a single mother of two also profiled in The Times.

“People have really opened their hearts. I think it is just marvelous,” Motil said.

Motil added that some people had called to offer help in finding employment for Carmen Herrera after the holidays.

Watts, a nursing student on welfare, said that some food had been delivered to her house. She also got a check for $375 from an anonymous executive who said he wanted to give money to the four families profiled.

Watts, who lives in Anaheim with her two daughters, Shante, 9, and Jae, 3, said she did not believe at first that the money was hers.

“I thought it was a mistake. I was going to send it back,” she said. “God, this is so terrific.”

She said she was going to buy the children a few toys for Christmas and use the rest of the money for more important things. Watts also said she would seek out the anonymous donor to personally thank him for his Christmas generosity.

Roxine Evans and her 9-year-old son, Brock, had one Christmas wish: a home.

They now have it, at least temporarily.

The mother and son were living at the Christian Temporary Housing Foundation, a shelter for the homeless in Orange. On Sunday afternoon, only hours after reading about the Evanses’ plight, a family from Anaheim drove to the shelter and “adopted” the mother and son.

On Christmas Eve, they were enjoying the plush confines of the large home, complete with a swimming pool, where the Tarantino family lives. Joe and Judy Tarantino said the Evanses could stay with them until the mother gets on her feet.

“I’m just fine,” Evans gushed. “I got my Christmas wish. I’m living with a lovely family in their beautiful home. I really lucked out.”

Shelter Gets $2,000-Plus

Michael Elias, director of the Christian Temporary Housing Foundation, a temporary shelter for homeless families where Evans and her son were living, said he received more than $2,000 in donations, enabling the shelter to “meet payroll at the end of the month and keep our electricity going.”

The fourth family profiled--Jerry and Brenda Keeler and their three daughters--were unavailable on Wednesday. When interviewed last week, the family was living at a motel in Garden Grove.

However, The Times has received a number of calls from people wanting to help the Keelers, including the anonymous executive who would like to donate $375.