Santa’s Deputy Keeps Delivering

On a rainy Christmas Day, 21 years ago, Gary McCollum hauled a bagful of toys to a door at the children’s unit at Camarillo State Hospital. He didn’t have an appointment, so the person who answered told him to please go away.

Undeterred, the Thousand Oaks man returned the next year--and each year after that--until “Santa Day” at Camarillo State Hospital became an annual tradition that is eagerly awaited by scores of children who live there year-round.

From its humble beginnings in 1972, it has evolved into an extravaganza that includes Santa landing at the center in a bright, yellow sheriff’s helicopter and deputies arriving on a bus laden with $1,500 worth of gifts.

And McCollum, a sheriff’s deputy who works as a bailiff in Ventura County Superior Court, is the man who has run the whole show for more than two decades.

“The guy has single-handedly made this program happen for 21 years,” said Jerry Scheurn, coordinator of volunteer services at Camarillo State Hospital. “He never brags about it. He does it out of the goodness of his heart.”

McCollum, 47, said he conceived the idea when his son, Chris, was just a baby. The child had a bunch of extra toys, so McCollum loaded them up and headed out to the mental hospital to give them to the children who are living there because of behavioral or developmental problems.

“My philosophy is, you help people where you can,” said McCollum. “This just appeared to be a need 21 years ago, and it still is.”

On Friday, that same son, now a 21-year-old corrections officer in the Ventura justice system, helped his father unload more than 15 large plastic bags filled with toys from a sheriff’s bus normally loaded with prisoners.

“I’m used to this,” said Chris McCollum. “He’s been bringing the family up here to help for years.”

As Santa’s helicopter zipped across the sky and circled a soccer field before coming in for a landing, about 120 children stood waiting for him. Twelve-year-old Charles started jumping up and down when Santa stepped out of the helicopter.

“We get lots of good stuff,” the youth happily told a visitor.

Francisco, 14, had a more subdued reaction. He watched the activities from the side, listening to rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg on earphones attached to a portable cassette player.

Then he removed the earphones and said quietly: “I still believe in Santa.”

Inside a nearby gymnasium, McCollum, Sheriff’s Deputy Igor Gromov and a handful of other volunteers spread the toys out in a long row so the children could easily make their selections.

Afterward, many of the youths came up to shake hands with the deputies and thank them for the gifts. One rambunctious boy was less grateful: “Why do I smell bacon?” he taunted.

Such outbursts don’t bother McCollum: He knows that many of the children come from broken homes and have severe emotional problems. Others have mental disorders, such as autism and Down’s syndrome.

Many of them land at Camarillo State Hospital, one of only two state mental institutions in California that treat children after they have proved too difficult to control in foster homes or residential treatment centers, Scheurn said.

Christmas is a difficult time for many of the children, who range in age from 5 to 17, Scheurn said. It is especially hard for those who don’t go home for the holidays.

“They see the other kids going home, their parents picking them up,” he said. “It’s difficult to be left behind.”

McCollum knows the hurt of family problems: When he was 5, his biological father left their San Fernando Valley home, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings on her own. McCollum said a Los Angeles police officer who was a good friend of the family became like a stepfather to him, providing moral guidance and strength.

Because of the man’s influence, McCollum decided to go into law enforcement himself, moving to Ventura County in 1968 to take a job with what was then the marshal’s office. When that office merged with the Sheriff’s Department in 1981, McCollum became a deputy sheriff.

McCollum didn’t plan for his annual trek to become a major event. It just happened that each year more people heard about his mission and began donating toys and gifts, he said.

In 1989, he collected about $50,000 worth of goodies from barrels he distributed at police stations around the county, McCollum said. He had so many toys left over that he sent a sheriff’s bus up to Watsonville to pass out gifts to victims of a devastating earthquake that hit the area that year, he said.

When the recession hit, however, many corporate givers went out of business or curtailed their donations, he said. McCollum himself began to tire because of the time and energy he spent collecting toys from far-flung locations.

Today, he has pared the operation down. With checks in hand from service clubs and law enforcement charity organizations, he buys the toys himself, McCollum said. Donations remain low this year because of the economy, he added.

But he will keep at it, McCollum said, “as long as I’m still walking. It’s just a real emotional thing for me. I’m hooked on it.”