Edison Lights Up Faces With Lots of Free Trees

Martha Gonzales went with her family to the Christmas tree lot Saturday morning. After roaming for a few minutes among the spruces and Douglas firs, the Tustin family came upon a full-bodied seven-footer.

“We are so happy because, really, we don’t have enough money to buy a tree,” Gonzales said.

The family had been resigned to buying a tiny tree, said Gonzales, who works as a housekeeper. Her three children were “very sad” at the prospect, she said. Then her 14-year-old daughter came home with a voucher from the St. Joseph’s Ballet Company of Santa Ana, a dance school for low-income families.

“ ‘Mommy,’ ” Gonzales recalled her daughter as saying, ‘we can have a big tree this year.’ ”

“It’s incredible,” Gonzales said.

The Gonzales’ tree was one of more than 1,700 Christmas trees given away to needy families by Southern California Edison. A grower who had leased land in Hacienda Heights from the power company to plant the trees encountered money problems and was forced to abandon the lot. Edison had to cut down the trees to make room for the next renter.

The Christmas trees were shipped to eight locations in the company’s 50,000-square-mile service area. Edison officials had given vouchers to service organizations, including 15 in Orange County. The organizations, in turn, distributed the tree tickets to needy families.

About 200 trees were stocked at the Santa Ana location, at the corner of Grand and McFadden avenues, for the picking.

Like the Gonzaleses, many brought their whole family along to the lot behind Edison’s central Orange County station.

They disappeared into the columns of trees. The pine aroma of Christmas was in the slight breeze on a sunny, cloudless morning.

“It’s kind of like the mountains or something,” said Ron Whittemore, an Edison manager who volunteered to help out with the tree giveaway.

It was a chance for John Pruden to help others. “We’re pretty dang fortunate,” said Pruden, an Edison foreman. “We have good jobs and everything. . . . It makes you feel good to be able to help.”

Some tree shoppers took longer than others to find the right pine.

With the help of friend Jesse Wimberly, it took Sonya Tabb about 10 minutes to find her tree.

“I’m just a picky person,” the Santa Ana resident said.

Though the data-entry worker bought a tree last year, she said she could use the $30 saved on a tree this Christmas.

Some picked more than one tree. Laura Sell and her group took 10 that will go into the rooms at the Florence Crittenton Services agency, a Fullerton-based group home for abused girls and unwed mothers.