Sharing their time and money

Marisa O’Neil

Suburbans, minivans and moving trucks filled with holiday gifts lined

up 20 deep Tuesday morning at the Orange County Fairgrounds for Share

Our Selves’ annual Adopt-A-Family Program.

Hundreds of volunteers hustled with carts and dollies to off-load

boxes of food, clothing and toys that will go to about 1,500 Orange

County families just in time for Christmas. Local residents,

companies and service organizations donated items for anywhere from

one to 77 families.

“SOS is such a worthy cause and this is so timely,” said Frank

Consoli, who adopted 10 families with his service group, OC Us in

Action. “It teaches us and our children that we can make a difference

and take a responsibility for our lives.”

Costa Mesa’s Share Our Selves provides year-round emergency

assistance for families in need. This is the 34th year for the

holiday Adopt-A-Family Program, which primarily serves families in

Santa Ana and Costa Mesa schools who would otherwise have little to

celebrate at Christmas.

In addition to connecting donors with needy families, Share Our

Selves provides food and toys for about 300 families.

“People get preoccupied with ‘orange’ alerts and things like

that,” said program coordinator Therese DeGroot. “Today we can be on

child alert.”

Donors who participate get a short description of the family or

families they are sponsoring, sometimes even including letters from

the children, DeGroot said. People can then buy items specifically

tailored to that family’s needs.

Tuesday morning, Share Our Selves volunteers had it down to a

system, directing traffic into the fairgrounds, loading labeled boxes

of gifts onto carts and stacking them in two large buildings, sorted

by school. Donations included bicycles, toys and giant boxes filled

with food.

“It’s kind of tiring but it’s fun,” 16-year-old Anne Rizzacasa

said as she ran with a dolly to unload more boxes.

Some local companies kept the volunteers extra busy with entire

truckloads of goodies. Teen clothing retailer Hot Topic, based in the

city of Industry, donated enough for 77 families.

“[Employees] used to do a gift exchange but we thought it would be

better to do something for other people,” said Amy Malone, a

department manager at Hot Topic’s head office. “Now we do this

instead.”

Last year, Hot Topic donated enough for 63 families, Malone said,

but each year of the six it has participated in the Share Our Selves

program, the group has challenged themselves to give to more

families.

Newport Beach residents Kim and Allen Yourman brought jackets,

games, school uniforms and food for a Christmas dinner for a

7-year-old and 11-year-old girl, a 13-year-old boy and their parents.

For confidentiality reasons, they will never meet the family, but

that just adds to the Santa spirit for some.

“This is the most Christmasy thing we do,” Kim Yourman said. “We

really enjoy this.”