Batting 1.000 for charity

Baseball cards. Hundreds of thousands to be exact, stored up over decades, more than filled Ray Haney’s San Juan Capistrano garage. Surely, over time in a collection of that size, duplicates amass.

It was in finding what to do with those extra cards that offered Haney, 80, an ideal way to give back to the community during the holidays.

So, Haney weeded out the spares and packaged them up for sale at the St. Mark Presbyterian Church Alternative Christmas Market last year. He returned this year to the event with tons of new and old cards.

Now in its 24th year, the event has grown in size as well as diversity, although not the way most would assume. Over the last couple of years, products sold at the holiday market have become more localized, said Diana Light, the event coordinator for the past three years.

“The idea, I guess, is to bring together the different charities,” Light said. “Part of the philosophy of the church is to provide and organize outreach locally and around the world.”

Haney’s booth offers the perfect example of vendors closer to home taking part in the fundraising. While most of the booths donate their proceeds to causes overseas, all of the sales from Haney’s hobby overflow will go toward the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

“Naturally the charity is the only reason I did it,” Haney said, adding his customers are not always the youngsters one would expect. “More of my sales are for adults than kids.”

Sold in packs of 135 or more, each hand-selected deck is guaranteed to hold at least one “star player,” Haney said. He specializes in three sports only, baseball, basketball and football, although if on his way he happens to pick up one from another sport, Haney will hold onto it.

Other booths at the event that day include Habitat for Humanity, Church World Service, The Nicaragua Covenant Committee and African Team Ministries.

Many of the booths had people purchase items that were used in third-world countries for food, building purposes, storage, or comfort and medical supplies. For the most part the booths sold items from the countries they represented, and took 100% of the proceeds to aid that country, said Joan Andersen, in charge of the Nicaragua booth.

It’s just more cost efficient that way, vendors agreed. There’s no middleman this way.

“All the money we raise today will go to dental clinics for the children of Acahualinca, a barrio of Managua,” Andersen said.

The new campus of St. Mark, only a few weeks in use, gave the event a great area to grow into with the addition of several new booths, raising the vendor count to 23, Light said.

“I’ve noticed that people in the congregation have seen this as the possibilities of them personally having an impact,” Light said.

Last year the group sent $12,000 to various charitable organizations and they only expect the giving to grown this year.

KELLY STRODL may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at kelly.strodl@latimes.com.